Kushiel's Dart

with hovering behind me and scowling at everyone we passed. We were in one of the lesser wings, where minor dignitaries are housed, so we encountered no one I knew, although there were a few who saw my sangoire cloak and gave me secret looks, knowing who I was and what it betokened.
    Lord Rogier Clavel received me eagerly. He had the D'Angeline looks, but had been living a soft life in the court of the Khalif, and gone a little plump with it. Still, he had the haughty manners of a courtier, and dismissed Miqueth quickly enough, for which I was grateful. Delaunay and I had gone over our strategy enough times, but still, I needed no distractions.
    "Phedre no Delaunay," Rogier Clavel said, putting on a formal voice that didn't quite disguise a quaver of eagerness, "I would appreciate it if you would put these items on." He snapped his ringers for a servant, who came bearing the flimsy gauze gowns of a hareem girl. I bit my lip to keep from laughing; it was a scenario straight out of a standard Night Court text, the Pasha's fantasy. I had expected more from a man who'd been satiated in the courts of Khebbel-im-Akkad.
    Still, I knew what was expected of me, and donned the transparent robes. Rogier disappeared, and I was ushered into a bedchamber, which was arrayed with genuine Akkadian appointments. It was more than nice, with luxuriant silk tapestries of elaborate, abstract designs and worked pillows fringed in gold. I sank down on these and knelt abeyante , waiting. The first of my lessons, and still among the most valuable. In time, Rogier Clavel entered, magnificent in his Pasha's attire. I kept from laughing at how his jowels quivered in his soft face beneath the splendid turban, kneeling to kiss the turned-up toes of his kidskin slippers.
    They guard their women well in Khebbel-im-Akkad. So I had heard, and so I came to understand, from the despite and desire mingled in him. Lord Clavel had been denied access, and he raged at it. Once I discerned this, we got on well enough. If he had been denied the hareem, he had gold enough and had paid it for this afternoon's pleasure. There was no question of exotic tastes learned abroad. He bore a gilt-handled quirt, and it roused him to a fury to punish me with it, chasing me about the cushions and flailing at my buttocks, breathing hard to see the thin red welts that ensued. I turned to the languisement when he groaned, kneeling solicitously, unbuttoning his voluminous pantaloons and taking him into my mouth. I thought that would be the undoing of him, but he surprised me, spilling me onto my back and tossing my legs into the air, performing the act of giving homage to Naamah with two years' pent vigor.
    It surprised him, to bring me to climax; and made him solicitous afterward, which also might have made me laugh. "You paid for an anguissette , my lord," I murmured instead. "Are you unhappy to have gotten one?"
    "No!" he said, caressing my hair, eyes wide with startlement. "No, Elua's Balls, no! I thought it was a myth, that's all."
    "I am not a myth," I said, lying against him and gazing up so he might better see the scarlet mote in my eye. "Are there no angui^settes in Khebbel-im-Akkad, then? 'Tis a cruel land, I am told."
    "Kushiel's Dart does not strike, where Elua and his companions have not laid their hand," Rogier Clavel said, tracing the curve of my breast through the thin gauze of my robes. "It is a harsh land indeed, and I am glad enough for a respite from it." A shadow crossed his face, " 'The bee is in the lavender,' " he quoted The Exile's Lament in a lovely, melancholy voice, " 'The honey fills the comb' ... I never understood the sorrow of it until I, too, was far from home."
    It was easier than I had reckoned. I smiled and twisted away, sitting back on my heels to put up my hair. "Is it so, then, with all D'Angelines? Does even the Due L'Envers long for home?"
    "Oh, my lord the Due," he said, watching me hungrily. "He is of Elua's line, and would prosper anywhere, I think. The Khalif has given him lands and horses and men of his own. Yet even he misses the soil of Terre d'Ange, it is true; and word has reached us of the fall of House Trevalion. The Due would return home, once his daughter is wed, and relinquish his appointment. I have come to petition the King on his behalf."
    My hands stilled on my hair, and I made myself resume, twining it into a loose coil and thrusting an Akkadian hairpin in place. "The Due's daughter is to be wed?"
    "To the