Kushiel's Mercy

alone together for many hours.
    I grinned at her. “Jealous?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “Curious.”
    “I can play escort without partaking if need be.” I caught her arms and tugged her toward me. Water sloshed over the edges of the tub. “If he’s an agent of the Guild, it may be he’s seeking a private moment.”
    Sidonie settled atop me. “What do you make of him?”
    “I’m not sure yet.” I clasped her buttocks, shifting her to gain a better angle. She made a small, satisfied sound as I entered her. “You?”
    “I don’t know.” Her hips rose and fell, slow and delicious. “I don’t dislike him. I expected to.”
    “Just don’t agree to wed him,” I suggested.
    Sidonie laughed and kissed me. “I won’t.”
    Afterward, clean and dried and dressed in finery, we attended the fête. It was a gorgeous affair, albeit a chaotic one. Very few of the Carthaginians spoke D’Angeline. Punic was their native tongue, although all in attendance spoke Hellene, which was used as a common tongue among traders. Many of the D’Angelines spoke Hellene, but not all, and none of the Cruithne did.
    As a result, conversations were difficult, and those of us who did speak Hellene were often forced to do double duty, making introductions and translating. My Hellene was good; one advantage of being Phèdre nó Delaunay’s foster-son was that I’d been taught to read and speak in a number of tongues. Still, it was exhausting, and I will own I felt relieved when a plump Carthaginian fellow hovering near the veiled treasure introduced himself to me in D’Angeline.
    “I am Jabnit of the House of Philosir,” he announced with an exacting little bow. “And I have already learned you are Prince Imriel. Well met, your highness.”
    “Well met, my lord,” I replied.
    “Oh, no lord!” His black eyes twinkled. “Merely a well-connected merchant.” Jabnit patted his considerable belly. “Well-connected and well-fed.”
    “Too well-fed,” a light voice said in amusement.
    “Sunjata!” The merchant glanced around. “Come meet the prince.”
    A young Nubian man stepped around him and bowed gracefully. He was of middling height and slender, with plum-dark skin and gently rounded features. “It is an honor, your highness.”
    “Sunjata is my assistant.” Jabnit patted his shoulder with the same comfortable familiarity with which he’d patted his own stomach. “Tell the prince of our role in this venture. I spy a servant with a laden platter of delicacies.”
    “Who will care for me if you stuff your belly to bursting, you old glutton?” Sunjata asked, but there was fondness in it. “Go, go.”
    “Your role?” I asked politely as the merchant waddled away.
    “The House of Philosir provided the gems for the gift to be unveiled this evening.”
    Sunjata looked at me under his lashes. “At a considerable discount, for the privilege of being part of this excursion. But surely you cannot be interested in that.”
    Somewhat in his manner, in the smoothness of his skin, in the light timbre of his voice struck an old chord of memory in me. I had known eunuchs in Daršanga.
    My reaction was subtle, but Sunjata read it. “Ah, yes,” he said with a seeming ease that didn’t quite belie the bitterness beneath it. “There is something we share in common, is there not? I too fell into the hands of Carthage’s slavers as a boy. Only in my case, the effects were more . . . lasting.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
    His slender shoulders moved in a shrug. “I don’t begrudge you your manhood. ’Tis no fault of yours that mine was taken. And I am a free man these past few years, insofar as I may call myself a man. Jabnit is a fair patron.” He gazed after the merchant, then back at me. “And I am rude and insolent,” he said, putting out his hand. “Thank you for your kindness.”
    I took his hand. “Of course.”
    He squeezed my hand, his thumb pressing on mine. I glanced down involuntarily. Sunjata sported a silver signet ring on his thumb, a lamp carved on the seal. “Perhaps we will speak again later,” he said, releasing my hand. With one deft, unobtrusive gesture, he twisted the ring, hiding the seal against his palm.
    I met his gaze. “I would like that.”
    For the balance of the evening, my thoughts were in a whirl. Exactly what I had expected of the Unseen Guild, I couldn’t say, but it wasn’t a eunuch in the employ of a gem-merchant.
    And the night only got stranger.
    A sumptuous