Kushiel's Dart

water and dirt on the sideboard, she peeled off her glove and struck me in the face with it. I tossed my hair back and glared at her, not needing to feign sullenness.
    "You ask too much," I retorted.
    Solaine Belfours had blue-green eyes, the color of aquamarines; when she was angry, they indeed turned as cold and hard as gemstones. It made my breath come quicker to watch it. "I ask only to be well served," she said coolly. She took her crop in her bare hand, tapping it against the gloved palm of the other. "And you presume too much. Take off your dress."
    It was not my first time with her and I knew how the scene played out. It is a strange thing, this playing and not playing. That my role was scripted to meet her desires, I knew well and played it accordingly; but there was no artifice in it when the crop stung my bare flesh over and over and I pleaded with her to let me make amends. There is a certain victory in it when they surrender. Much as I despised her, I trembled as she allowed me to perform an act of contrition, undoing the buttons of her riding breeches, pressing my mouth against her heated flesh. I closed my eyes as her hands came to rest on my head, the now-idle crop held loosely, gently brushing my back and reminding me of its cruelties.
    And it was at this moment that her steward intruded, entering with averted eyes to announce the arrival of a courier with an urgent message from Lyonette de Trevalion.
    "Blessed Elua!" There was mingled annoyance and alarm in her voice. "What does she want now? Show him in." Stepping away from me, Solaine Belfours refastened her riding attire and smoothed her hair. I remained as I was, kneeling. She cast a glance at me, all annoyance now. "I am not finished with you. Put your clothes on, and attend."
    Of a surety, I did not need to be told twice. I had learned in Cereus House how to be unobtrusive, and I had learned the value of it from Delaunay. I knelt abeyante , quiet and nigh-invisible, as the Lionesse of Azzalle's courier entered.
    I do not know what he looked like; Delaunay might chide me for it, but I dared not raise my eyes. It was to my good fortune that the Marquise, like many people, could not read without murmuring the words aloud to herself. I can, and so can Alcuin, but only because Delaunay made us learn to do so. Solaine Belfours could not, and thus did I learn of Lyonette de Trevalion's request. It was rumored that the Khalif of Khebbel-im-Akkad had proposed an alliance between our countries with a marriage between his heir and the Princess Ysandre. Lyonette de Trevalion proposed that Solaine draft orders to the Akkadian ambassador, stamped with the Privy Seal, to string along the Khalif with false promises until he ceded rights to the island of Cythera.
    It goes without saying that it was Lyonette de Trevalion's plan that these orders be discovered, destroying all hope of an Akkadian alliance.
    Solaine Belfours was a Secretary of the Privy Seal; she had access and could do it, though it was high treason to falsify royal orders. I felt the wind of her pacing, and her crop swishing as she struck it absentmindedly against her boot. "What does your mistress offer?" she asked the courier.
    A deep voice answered. "A title in Azzalle, my lady. The county of Vicharde, with two hundred men-at-arms and an income of forty thousand ducats annual."
    The crop swished again; I saw it, out of the corner of my eye. "Tell her I'll take it," Solaine Belfours said decisively. "But I want the title in hand before the orders go out, and safe passage guaranteed to Azzalle." Even at a distance, I could sense her cold smile. "Tell her I want no less an escort than Prince Baudoin and his Glory-Seekers. Let us see if she is in earnest."
    From the rustle and creak, I knew the courier bowed. "As you wish, my lady. Title in hand, and Prince Baudoin as escort. I will relay your words."
    "Good." Some time after the courier had left, I felt her gaze upon me. It lingered for a moment before I looked up. She was smiling, swinging her crop in great, looping circles. My skin shuddered involuntarily at the sight of it. "I'm of a mind to celebrate, Phedre," she said with cheerful malice. "What a happy coincidence that you're here."
    • As matters fell out, Lyonette de Trevalion declined Solaine Belfours counteroffer, and as the Marquise had foreseen, the sticking-price was Prince Baudoin. Whatever the Lionesse of Azzalle had planned, it was not worth risking her precious son. It soon