Kushiel's Dart

you can take your lessons together. Have you other languages? No? No matter. When you've settled in, I'll arrange for you to start lessons in Skaldic and Cruithne."
    My head swam; I picked up my plate of melon, and set it back down. "My lord Delaunay," I said, choosing my words carefully. "Is it not your will that I shall be apprenticed unto the service of Naamah?"
    "Oh, that." With a wave of his hand, he discarded the tenets of the Night Court. "You can sing, I'm told, and play a passable harp; the Do-wayne says you've an ear for poetry. I'll hire a tutor to continue your teaching in such arts, until you come of age and may decide for yourself if you wish to serve Naamah. But there are other matters of more import."
    I sat up straight on the couch. "The arts of the salon are of the utmost import, my lord!"
    "No." His grey eyes glinted. "They have value, Phedre, and that is all. But what I will teach you, you will like, I think. You will learn to look, to see, and to think, and there is merit in such lessons as will last a lifetime."
    "You will teach me what already I know," I said, sullen.
    "Will I indeed?" Delaunay leaned back on the couch and popped a grape into his mouth. "Tell me, then, about the coach in which we rode here, Phedre. Describe it to me."
    "It was a black coach." I glared at him. "A coach-and-four, with matched bays. With red velvet on the seats, gold braid on the curtains, and sateen stripes on the walls."
    "Well done." He glanced at Alcuin. "And you ...?"
    The boy sat up, cross-legged on the couch. "It was a coach-for-hire," he said promptly, "because there was no insignia on the door, and the driver wore plain clothes and not livery. A wealthy hostelry, most like, because the horses were well-bred and matched; nor were they lathered, so most like you leased them here in the City. The driver was between eighteen and twenty-two, and country-bred to judge from his hat, but he has been in the City long enough to need no direction nor bite good coin when paid him by a gentleman. He carried no other passengers, and left straightaway, so I would gauge you were his only fare today, my lord. If I were to seek your identity and your business, my lord, I think it would not be so hard to find the driver of this coach-and-four and make inquiries."
    His dark eyes danced with the pleasure of having answered well; there was no malice in it. Delaunay smiled at him. "And better done," he said, then glanced at me. "Do you see?"
    I muttered something; I don't know what.
    "This is the training I will ask of you, Phedre," he said, his voice sterner. "You will learn to look, to see, and to think on what you see. You asked me at Midwinter if I knew you by your eyes, and I said no. I did not need to see the mote in your eye to know you were one who had been stricken by Kushiel's Dart. It was in every line of your body, as you gazed after the dominatrices of Mandrake House. It is to the glory of Elua and his Companions, in whose veins your blood flows; even as a child, you bear the mark of it. In time, you may become it, do you choose. But understand, my sweet, that this is only a beginning. Now, do you see?"
    His face acquired a particular beauty when he put on that expression, stern and serious, like the portraits of old provincial nobles who could trace their lineage straight back to one of Elua's Companions in an unbroken line. "Yes, my lord," I said, adoring him for it. If Anafiel Delaunay wanted me to lay down in the stews, like Naamah, I would do it, I was sure . . . and if he willed me to be more than an instrument for Mandragian fiddle-players, I would learn to be it. I thought on his words to me that Longest Night, and a connection formed in my mind, as easily as a nursing babe finds the nipple. "My lord," I asked him, "did you place a wager in Night's Doorstep that Baudoin de Trevalion would play the Sun Prince?" Once more I was rewarded with his unexpected shout of laughter, longer this time, unchecked. Alcuin grinned and hugged his knees with glee. At last, Delaunay wrestled his mirth under control, removing a kerchief from his pocket and dabbing his eyes. "Ah, Phedre," he sighed. "Miriam was right. She should have asked for more."

SEVEN
    So began the years of my long apprenticeship with Anafiel Delaunay, wherein I began to learn how to look and see and think. And lest anyone should suppose that my time was taken with nothing more taxing than watching and heeding my surroundings, I may assure you, this was