Kushiel's Dart

my art, I spent time with Hyacinthe.
    Even as my station had changed, so had his. He had at long last convinced his mother to part with some of her hard-won gold to augment his own, and they now owned the building on Rue Coupole. It was no less small and squalid than before, but it was theirs. They lived as they always had on the lower floor, and let rooms to an interminable stream of Tsingani families who passed through the City with every horse fair and circus that followed the trade routes.
    His mother had grown older and dwindled in size, but the fierce glare of her deep-set eyes had not diminished. I marked how the itinerant Tsingani paid her respect; and I marked how they avoided Hyacinthe, though I never spoke of it to him. Among the Tsingani, he was half-D'Angeline and shunned, but among D'Angelines, he was the Prince of Travellers and the denizens of Mont Nuit continued to pay good coin to have him read their palms.
    For his part, Hyacinthe had not given up his dream of finding his mother's people and claiming his birthright as her son; but these were not such Tsingani as passed the City's boundaries and came to dwell for a time within it. They had done so once and once only, he told me-for so his mother had told him-and lost their fairest daughter to the wiles of D'Angeline seduction. Now only the poorest of companies entered the City gates, while the flower of Tsingani nobility wandered the earth, following the Lungo Drom , the long road.
    So Hyacinthe believed, and it was not for me to disabuse him of this notion; perhaps, indeed, it was true. For now he seemed well-enough satisfied to remain the undisputed Prince of Travellers in Mont Nuit, and I was glad of it, for he was my friend. I never told him, though, that I had chosen his name as my signale . I loved Hyacinthe dearly, but he would have crowed like a cock to hear it, and I could not abide that much of his vanity all of a piece.
    "So Childric d'Essoms is in the L'Envers' pocket," he said when I told him my news, and whistled through his teeth. "That is news, Phedre. What does your Delaunay make of it?"
    "Nothing." I made a sour face. "He gets closer-lipped with age, and would feign protect us with ignorance. Though I think sometimes he tells Alcuin things he would not have me hear."
    We sat at the kitchen table, and I had thrown off my sangoire cloak, which I wore everywhere those days, for the air was stifling and smelled of cooking cabbage. His mother poked and muttered at the stove, ignoring us. It was a reassuring constant in my life. Hyacinthe grinned at me and tossed a silver coin in the air, catching it in one hand and making it walk across his knuckles, then disappear. He had learned the trick from a street-corner illusionist in exchange for two weeks' lodging. "You are jealous."
    "No," I said, then; "Yes, perhaps."
    "Has he bedded the boy?"
    "No!" I exclaimed, offended at both the notion and his use of the word "boy," when Alcuin was no younger than he himself. "Delaunay would not do that!"
    Hyacinthe shrugged. "Still, you must consider the possibility. You would be quick enough to boast of it, if it were you."
    "It's not me." The lack of promise in that outlook made me glum. "No, he is freer with Alcuin because he reckons Alcuin's patrons are not so dangerous as mine, or at least more subtle in the ways of violence. Anyway, they have been thick in politics since the day he took Alcuin to court to pose as his scribe. I do not see the logic in it, when the Cruarch was slain and another rules in his place."
    Hyacinthe's mother muttered louder at the stove.
    Once, he had ignored such ominous rumblings; now, I noted, his expression grew sharp, like a hound on the trail of scent. "What is it, Mother?"
    The words were repeated, unintelligible, then turning, she brandished a ladle at us. I remembered her pointing finger, which had struck a note of fear in my heart. "Pay heed," she said in a dire tone. "Do not discount the Cullach Gorrym."
    I looked at Hyacinthe, who blinked. "I do not understand your words," he said carefully to his mother.
    She trembled and lowered the ladle, passing her other hand before her eyes. Her face looked sunken and old. "I know not," she admitted in a thready voice.
    "The black boar." I cleared my throat, feeling strangely apologetic. Both of them glanced at me. "It is Cruithne, madame; the words you spoke." I had been so long dissembling among patrons, I was awkward in vaunting my learning. "Do not discount the black