The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner Page A

dignity. He’ll have more standing on the Hill.”
    “The whole city knows what you are. Which house you do it in hardly makes a difference.”
    The duke said, “You don’t like my ideas, you don’t like my choices…the truth is, you don’t like me very much, Alcuin, do you?”
    “Of course I do, I love you.”
    “It’s all right. I don’t like you much, either.”
    “Why do you keep me, then?”
    “Who said anything about keeping you?”
    Alcuin bent his beautiful head over the duke’s manicured hand, sweeping it with his lips. “Please…” And Tremontaine did not push him away.
    When the duke slept, though, Alcuin dressed, and scribbled a little note and propped it on the duke’s dressing table, and ordered up a carriage to take him to the Hill. In the duke’s bedroom, the curtains were always drawn; his lover was almost surprised to find that outside it was daylight.
    They knew him at Tremontaine House, and he still wore their master’s ring. They let him in, and nobody followed him through the corridors to the duke’s apartments. There he looked for papers, any papers that might serve his needs and embarrass his lover, but he could not find what he wanted there, any more than he had in Riverside. He proceeded to the library and opened the likeliest books, but all that they contained were words. He had expected the room to be empty, and started violently when he heard the crackle of paper.
    It was only a boy, pretty and well dressed, with astonishingly long hair—a student, then—sitting in the window seat with a book. As he prided himself on his ability to deal with any situation, Alcuin bowed to him. It was not, after all, as though he had been doing anything but looking at books. That was what one did in a library. He’d just have to wait for privacy for the desk to divulge its contents.
    The boy got up hurriedly, shoving the book under a cushion. “Oh!” he said. “Is my uncle back?”
    Alcuin stared. “And who is your uncle?”
    “The duke, I mean,” the boy stammered. “You’re—you’re Alcuin, aren’t you?”
    The man smiled, not unflattered to be known. “You’ve come early for the party, child.” He moved in a little closer. Yes, you could see the family resemblance if you looked hard, though it was mostly in the tone of the skin, the setting of the eyes.
    “Were you looking for something in here? Perhaps I could help you.” This boy’s lineaments were soft and round where the duke’s were sharp-cut. In fact—
    “No!” Alcuin snapped. “You keep out of my affairs.” He should have recognized her sooner. Those silly clothes confused him.
    The duke’s niece boldly faced him, looking at him with a direct gaze he found disconcerting.
    “There is no call to be so angry,” she said. “When will my uncle be back?”
    “I—” But he could not say he did not know. “Soon. In time for his party. Will you be performing the comic theatricals?”
    He had the satisfaction of seeing her blush. But she stood her ground, and so the library was closed to him for now.
    He returned to the duke’s own chambers upstairs, which he found now occupied by their master in a snarling foul humor, attended by his boy, Marcus.
    He was preparing to leave them when the duke said, “Stay out of the way tonight, Alcuin.”
    “Why? Are you afraid I’ll draw attention from your precious poet?”
    “I’m afraid you’ll bore them to death. Nobody wants to hear your opinion on meter and verse. It is all too painfully obvious that you start thinking of these things only after other people have begun to talk about them.”
    “You’re screwing your poet, too, aren’t you?”
    “If I am, you’ll still have nothing interesting to say.”
    Alcuin went off to kick his valet, who surely had arrived by now.
    “And stay out of my papers,” Tremontaine said to the closed door behind him.

    I HAD NOT ACTUALLY BEEN INVITED TO THE DUKE’S party, but I was sure that was an oversight. I lived here,