Kushiel's Dart

and asked no questions, for which I was grateful.
    I had pleased him, at least; that much was sure. Unlike Gunter, his ardors were not untutored, at least in his mind. Waldemar Selig had had a dozen years or more to pore over the finer points of D'Angeline love-making. He hungered for sophistication that Gunter never dreamed existed.
    Selig had been married once; I didn't know it then, but learned it later. From what I gathered, she'd been nigh a match for him too, a quicktempered and passionate Suevi chieftain's daughter. He used to read some of the Trots Milles Joies aloud to her, and they would experiment together, laughing and falling over one another in his great bed. But she got quickly with child, and it was a breech birth; the child lived only a day, and she took septic and died.
    Perhaps he would not have been driven to conquest, had she lived. Who can know such things? It is my observation, though, that happiness limits the amount of suffering one is willing to inflict upon others. I like to think it might have been so.
    Despite the pervasive aftermath of too much mead, the Skaldi encampments were beginning to break up that day. Waldemar Selig rode hither and thither, speaking to one and all. He cut a splendid figure atop a tall dark-bay horse, gold gleaming on the fillet that bound his hair and the tips of his forked beard. I don't deny him that. Clear-eyed from having abstained from overindulgence, he went efficiently about his business, arranging for the swiftest rider from each steading to stay encamped, setting in place a network of communications.
    Since I had no orders to remain in the great hall, I went out amid the camps that day, thinking to bid Hedwig farewell. I don't know why, save that it was better than enduring the resentment of Selig's folk. The mood among the camps was markedly different than it had been upon our arrival. Men who'd eyed each other with veiled loathing clasped arms like brothers, vowing to guard each other's backs in battle when next they met. Selig has done this, I thought, and wondered how Isidore d'Aiglemort could ever have been so foolish. I knew, though, in my heart. He did but make the same mistake with Selig that the realm had made with him. "Camae-lines think with their swords," I remembered someone saying dismissively at Cecilie Laveau-Perrin's fete so long ago. So we had thought, while the Duc d'Aiglemort plotted and secured his army. I wondered if he had said the same words of Waldemar Selig. Maybe not. I never heard a fellow D'Angeline credit any Skaldi with thinking, with or without a sword.
    Thinking these thoughts, I failed to pay heed to my course and wandered straight into the path of a Gambrivü thane as he emerged from his tent. He grinned, showing bad teeth, and caught my wrist, shouting. "Look, Selig's decided to give us an early taste of victory, eh? Who's for swiving like a King, lads? First luck to me, and seconds for the rest!"
    It happened too fast, between one instant and the next. One instant I was still gaping at his rot-toothed face, drawing breath for a reply, and the next he bent my arm behind me with a quick, expert twist and shoved me down in the snow, one hand pinning the back of my neck. Shouts of encouragement rang out-and a few cautionary protests-as my face was pressed hard against the trodden snow. Even then, it wasn't until he dragged my skirts up, exposing my bare buttocks to the cold air, that I believed it was happening.
    One must understand, rape is not merely a crime in Terre d'Ange-as it is in all civilized countries, and indeed, even among the Skaldi, for their own women-it is heresy. Love as thou wilt, Blessed Elua said to us; rape is a violation of that sacred precept. As a Servant of Naamah, it was always mine to give consent; even for an anguissette ., which is why no patron would have dared transgress the sanctity of the signale . Even Melisande honored it, within the bounds of Guild-law. What she did to me that last night. . . she would have ended it, if I'd given the signale . I do believe that. It was my choice to withhold it.
    With Gunter and with Selig, I'd been taken against my will with no choice at all, and I thought I knew some measure of the horror of it. As the packed snow melted and froze against my cheek and the Gambrivü thane fumbled with his breeches while yelling Skaldi gathered around, I knew I had grasped only the smallest part of it.
    And then another voice roared into the fray, and the weight was