Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [14]
"It's a sickness in your blood," Hyacinthe told me knowledgeably when next I escaped to Night's Doorstep. We sat on the stoop of his building in Rue Coupole, sharing a bunch of stolen grapes between us and spitting out the pips into the street. "That's what my mother says."
"Do you think it's true?" I had come, ever since the painter's death, to share the quarter's solemn awe of Hyacinthe's mother's prophetic gift.
"Maybe." He spat a pip in a meditative fashion.
"I don't feel sick."
"Not like that." Although he was only a year older than me, Hyacinthe liked to act as if he had the wisdom of the ages. His mother was teaching him something of the dromonde, her art of fortunetelling. "It's like the falling-sickness. It means a god's laid his hand on you."
"Oh." I was disappointed, for this was nothing more than Delaunay had said, only he had been more specific. I had hoped for something more distinctive from Hyacinthe's mother. "What does she say of my fortune?"
"My mother is a princess of the Tsingani," Hyacinthe said in a lofty tone. "The dromonde is not for children. Do you think we've time to meddle in the affairs of a fledgling palace whore?"
"No," I agreed glumly. "I suppose not."
I was too credulous, Delaunay would tell me later, laughing. After all, Hyacinthe's mother took in washing and told fortunes for rabble far worse situated than any Servant of Naamah. It is true, I learned that, in much, Hyacinthe was mistaken; indeed, had he but known, it was forbidden for Tsingani men to attempt to part the veils of the future. What his mother taught him was taboo, vrajna, among his people.
"Maybe when you're older," Hyacinthe consoled me. "When you've gold to add to her wealth."
"She tells the inn-keep's for silver," I said irritably, "and the fiddler's for copper. And you know well, any coin I get above my contract will go to pay the marquist. And anyway, I'll not formally serve'til I've reached womanhood, it's in the guild-laws."
"Maybe you'll bloom early." Unconcerned with my fate, Hyacinthe popped a grape into his mouth. I hated him a little bit, then, for being free. "Besides, a coin well-spent may be returned three times over in wisdom gained." He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, grinning. I had heard him part many a patron from his purse with similar lines. I grinned back, then, and loved him for it.
FIVE
The Midwinter Masque fell before my tenth birthday, for I was born in the spring, but the Dowayne elected that I should be allowed to attend. I was not, it seemed, to leave the Night Court without seeing it full, in all its splendour.
Every House has its own masque at some point throughout the year, and each, I am told, is a splendid affair with a worthy history-but the Midwinter Masque is something different. Its roots are older than the coming of Elua, for it celebrates the passing of the old year and the return of the sun. Blessed Elua was so charmed, it is said, by the peasants' simple ritual that he embraced it as well, as a rite that honored his mother Earth and her solar consort.
It has always been the role of Cereus House, the First, to host the Midwinter Masque. On the Longest Night, the doors to all the other Houses are closed, their walls emptied, for everyone comes to Cereus House. No patrons are welcomed save those who bear the token of Naamah, a gift given only at a Dowayne's discretion. Even now, when the night of the Thirteen Houses wanes under the light of profit, the tokens remain another matter, held only by those who lay claim to royal lineage and are deemed worthy of Naamah's embrace.
Days before the event, the house was shrouded in mystery and bustle. Mystery, for no one knew who would be chosen from among our ranks to play the key roles in the great masque; the Winter Queen was chosen, always, from among the adepts of Cereus House. The Sun Prince, of course, might be selected from any of the Thirteen Houses, and the competition was fierce.