Venturus made a tour of the room, working the sword in flashy patterns so that I had to keep well away.

"Fear," he observed to the air, "is enemy to sword. And fear to sword is friend. You see now?"

"No." "No? Why not? You have eyes, but you no see. I teach and teach, but you no learn. Why you no learn, silly duke-boy?"

I took a deep breath. "I see one thing," I said, "and that's that I'll never be any good at this. And you know what? That's just fine with me, because it was never my idea in the first place, remember? So why don't you just go ahead and tell my uncle that I have too bad a temper and I'm too scared and stupid ever to be a decent swordsman, and then we can all go home!"

He turned to me with real hardness in his eyes. The sword was down at his side, but for the first time, the man truly frightened me. "Do not sharpen your tongue on Venturus," he growled. "Do not command like to some servant." His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply. "I go now, yes? This no day for sword."

I stood very still as he put on his shirt and jacket, picked up his sword-belt and weapon and left."Do you ever even take a bath?" I shouted to the door once it had closed behind him.

chapter VII.

AS THE CLOUDLESS SKY ABOVE THE RIVER FADEDfrom blue to grey to green before settling into another deeper, darker blue that set off the evening star to perfection, the curtains of Godwin House were drawn against the night chill and the vapors of the river.

Scented candles were lit in the music room, which turned warm, hazy and dreamlike amongst their fumes, the vases of flowers and the perfumed men and women in their whispering satin.

The young Lady Lydia Godwin had assembled a group of friends for a dinner-or, rather, her mother had assembled them for her from a slightly longer list of Lydia's. Since her first ball, Lydia was now allowed a certain number of small gatherings, carefully monitored and chaperoned.

After a dinner of eleven dishes and much innuendo, all Lydia wanted to do was to disappear into a corner with her closest friends to discuss the preceding events: looks and comments, dresses and ornaments, jokes and compliments. Instead, she must play the hostess and restrict herself to the occasional glance across the room at Artemisia Fitz-Levi when anything particularly struck her.

It wasn't so easy to catch Lady Artemisia's eye. Her attention was occupied by a nobleman in mulberry silk who seemed always to be speaking earnestly to her.

Artemisia could not be certain of whether Lord Terence Monteith was a bore or not. He had good clothes and good jewels, and a very pleasant face. The Godwins had invited him and he was unmarried, so clearly he had prospects. But nothing he was saying interested her. Which was odd, because he wasnot, as is usual with men, demanding that she listen to him. He was asking her opinion of things, and hanging on her every word. It was just that she had no opinion on the things he asked her. She hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about whether musicians who played on the street should be required to have licenses, or livestock entering the city be inspected for disease. It was, of course, flattering that he wanted to know. "Really?" he kept saying. "Do you think so? And what about...?" until she was taxed for invention. In fact, it was beginning to feel a bit too much like a lesson she hadn't prepared for, which made her cross. She was not, after all, in the schoolroom any longer. Artemisia tossed her curls. "Lord Terence," she said, "how charming to find a man who thinks a woman knows more than just fashion and poetry!" hoping that at least he'd want to ask her about those.

His eyes never left her face. "What perfect teeth you have," Lord Terence said, confirming her suspicion that he was, in fact, a bore and, having no conversation of his own, had simply been asking her to provide it while he stared at her.

Lydia's parents came in then with a handful of their own friends who had been dining elsewhere.

Artemisia had to restrain herself from dropping a schoolgirl's curtsey to Michael, Lord Godwin, and his lady, now that she was a young lady herself.

The eddy of newcomers should have been enough to detach her from Lord Terence, but the young nobleman was nothing if not persistent. In a moment he would ask if he might call on her, and she would have to say yes, or she would hear about it from her mother. She looked desperately for Lydia to signal for aid, but the daughter of the house was being dutiful with one of her parents' guests: a tall, dark-haired man with a distinguished air.

"Old people," Artemisia murmured daringly to Terence, no longer caring what he thought of her, "why must they insinuate themselves and spoil the party?"

Sure enough, her suitor drew back a little shocked. "That is Lord Ferris," he said, "the new Crescent Chancellor himself! Really, I wonder that Lady Godwin will have him here, now that he has taken her husband's place as head of the Council of Lords; but I suppose they are used to these ups and downs in politics. I have already taken my seat in Council, of course, but I've spoken only once or twice, on minor matters...."

"About cattle?" she asked piquantly, "or fish?"

Lord Terence missed the mockery completely, and was about to tell her which, when suddenly Artemisia made the mistake of catching Lydia's eye, and burst into helpless laughter.

Lord Ferris turned his whole head to look at her. His left eye was covered with a black velvet patch.

"Hmm," he said to Lydia. "Possibly the first person ever to find Terence Monteith at all amusing. Pray introduce me to your friend."

"Do you meanArtemisia ?" Lydia could have bitten her own tongue for sounding like a schoolgirl. But the Crescent Chancellor smiled at her in such a way as to indicate a complete understanding of what a complicated task it was for a young woman to play hostess at her own dinner party; indeed, he made her feel, just for a moment, as though running a party of eligible young people and running the Council of Lords were not such entirely different tasks.

"With pleasure," Lydia said smoothly. Lord Ferris must be older than her father, but unlike her father, he took the trouble to treat a young girl like a proper lady, not someone who still ate in the nursery with her little brothers. His hair was very black, with just a little silver, and his hands were finely shaped,ornamented with heavy, tasteful gold rings. The eyepatch only gave him an air of mystery. She felt tremendously grown-up when he offered her his arm and guided her across the floor to where Artemisia Fitz-Levi stood, with Terence Monteith gawking beside her.

Lord Ferris was, after all, a widower; and if Terence had had the sort of mind that observed the world around him, he would have known to exactly what purpose Lady Godwin had invited the Crescent Chancellor to stop in at her daughter's party.

HAVING SAIDIWOULD NOT CRY, IWAS HONOR BOUND not to. After Venturus left, though, I was ready to cry or spit.

I stalked down to the library. It was a soothing room, quiet and well proportioned, with cozy chairs and an excellent view. But to my annoyance, the duke's librarian was there. He was a dreamy man who hardly seemed to exist, and usually he did not notice that I did. He catalogued and rearranged, making faces at things no one else knew the meanings of, like flakes on the outside of books and notes on the inside of them. He saw me come in, this time, and said, "Good day, Lady Katherine. Can I help you with your studies? Or are you looking for some more, ah, feminine diversion?" To this day, I don't think he noticed I never wore a dress.

"Yes," I said poisonously; "what have you got that's really feminine in here?"

The librarian's face took on a worried look, as though if he couldn't find the right thing, he'd have to kill himself forthwith. "Ah, nature," he said nervously, "I believe is suitable for young ladies. The late duchess had many rare volumes of plants and animals-and though the classification of birds as animals is still in dispute by Doctors Milton and Melrose, I have put the bird books over here."

I settled myself in a cushioned window seat with a big illustrated volume. The pictures were bigger than live birds are, and you could see all the details. But it was hard to concentrate after my fight with Venturus, with the librarian there muttering to himself. I looked up and saw him pry a little worn leather volume out from between two grand tomes on a shelf. He flipped it open, then dropped the little book on a table as though it had a contagious disease, making disapproving noises all the while. When he left to wash his hands, I pounced on it.

"The Swordsman Whose Name Was Not Death,by a Lady of Quality." Opposite the title page was a woodcut of a man in old-fashioned clothes bowing to a lady, one hand on the sword at his side.

I opened to the first page. Many hours later, when the sun went down and I couldn't see the words, I had only gotten to the part where Lady Stella discovers she is with child, and runs away to her cousin in the country so that Fabian does not know it is his, which would ruin his concentration as he prepares for his duel against his great enemy in the University clock tower-although I was fairly certain even then that he would win it, but Mangrove would get away somehow, which he did.

I wrapped the book in my handkerchief and took it to my room. It wasn't stealing, because the duke's book was still in the duke's house, and it had looked to me like the librarian was just going to throw it out anyway.

I wasn't sure how Fabian got to be such a great swordsman when he never seemed to practice, but I admired the way he could fight up and down stairs, and how he lived by the swordsman's code but still was so clever about not killing Lady Stella although he was bound to. He took money for his work, butno one could make him do a thing that he despised, or harm the innocent. His word and his sword were his honor, everyone knew it, and they all respected him, even Mangrove, who hated him.

I tucked the book under my pillow, determined not to open it again 'til morning. But after supper I put a fresh candle in the holder, and settled down to find out who won the fight in the clock tower, and what became of Stella's baby. I cried so hard I had to get up and hunt for a fresh handkerchief. Even when I'd snuffed the candle I lay with my eyes open, thinking of swordsmen in dark cloaks, their perfect form, their steady hands and clear, unwavering eyes.

The next day I finished the book and immediately started it over again.

When the librarian appeared I asked him if there were any more books about swordsmen. He gave me Lives of the Heroic Swordsmen , which didn't mention Fabian or Mangrove, but did have some interesting people in it, like Black Mark of Ariston, who had fought one-armed after his great battle; and Harling Ober, who never refused a challenge, and had carried the sword at the wedding of my great-grandmother, Diane, Duchess Tremontaine. Ober had learned his art by sneaking up to a dangerous rooftop and peeking down at the great swordsman Rampiere, who had refused to teach him. I supposed that I was lucky to have Master Venturus. But my teacher failed to show for my next lesson.

Perhaps he had quit, insulted. Perhaps he was staying away just to try and teach me respect. And perhaps he was preparing more mockery about a little scared duke-boy who could not learn the sword. I was all dressed for practice, so I practiced by myself. I wondered how I would fare if I were set upon by king's guards (if we still had a king), or had to fight with one foot on water, the other on the shore. I thought that I would like a cloak as black as night, and a jeweled pin to bind up my hair.

chapter VIII.

HAVING SOWN DISSENT AT A MEETING OF THECouncil of Lords that morning, and being in the process of acquiring a new coat that afternoon, the Duke Tremontaine was in excellent spirits. He stood in a sun-washed room in his Riverside house, permitting one of his secretaries to read him the latest set of letters received and logged, while he simultaneously dictated responses, tried to hold still for the tailor and entertained a friend.

The duke's chief secretary, a balding young man named Arthur Ghent, removed the tapes from another roll of papers and shook them out. "These are the ones addressed to 'the Duke of Riverside,'" he explained. "I've passed the requests for money on to Teddy; he'll work from your list and include it in the month's report for you to approve. What's left are from people I've never heard of that maybe you have: the usual litany of complaints and suggestions." He shook out a ragtag batch of correspondence written on anything that could hold a sentence, from the backs of old bills to leaves torn from books. "Hmm..."

He observed the writing on note after note. "Same hand, same hand, same hand...popular scribe. I wonder who it is?" "Here, let me see." The duke stretched out his hand for the papers, opening up the seam the tailor had just carefully pinned. "Yes...I know him. Another University man-like you, Arthur, but not so fortunate as to have secured an important secretarial post. First he tried verse, then plays, then drink, which brought him to scribing letters for the less fortunate in Riverside. Let's see...what is on the mind of the less fortunate these days?" The duke scanned a few lines of one, then another. "They don't like the tearing down of ruins-too bad. They like the new gutters-I should think so. Sam Bonner fell in one of them and twisted his foot and wants reparation. Bonner...is he still alive? He was already pickled when I was a boy." He held the letter out to his secretary. "No reparation, bad precedent. No, wait-where's he writing from?" The duke scanned the bottom of the sheet. "'At Old Madge's off Parmeter Street.'

God, he's living in a cellar. Send him something; send him some wine. But no money." Ghent made a note on the back of Bonner's letter.

"It's a joke, you know." The Ugly Girl was sitting in the corner, watching the sun move across the patterned carpet. "This 'Duke of Riverside' business. It isn't your real title. You derive no income from Riverside; it's just your toy."

"That's what you think." The duke eased his long arms out of the coat for the tailor.

"You're wasting your time on all this. The world will always be full of drunks and liars and people down on their luck who never had any to begin with."

"Stick to your field, and let me amuse myself with my particular corner of it. Not so tight," he told the tailor, who nodded, his mouth full of pins. "I must have my hobbies. I don't ride, I don't dance, I don't race, and I don't collect objects of virtue."

She snorted at that. "I still say it's a waste of time. You'd do better to apply yourself to your mathematics."

Because he was in a good mood, he did not attack her. "But I am so useful. I am useful all the time.

Today I managed to scuttle an appalling suggestion from an appalling nobleman who thinks he knows something about how this state should be run, and has managed to convince far too many people that he is right. It's just the beginning, of course: Davenant won't stop there; oh, no. He and his very good friend the Crescent Chancellor have a bright new tax plan in mind. One doesn't go after the Crescent like that, so I have started a rumor campaign against Davenant on the street, and called his allies into question with a plethora of minutiae in Council. It will take them days to get over it, by which time I have every reason to believe his mistress will be abandoning him for one of his supporters, which will make him do something stupid." The duke preened. "It is so nice to have work to do that is both useful and amusing."

The Ugly Girl grinned. "All right. I take it back. You are an ornament to society."

"I will be when this jacket gets done. You," he told the tailor, as he eased the duke back into it, "are nothing short of brilliant. I shall be the only man in the city able both to move his arms above his head and look well composed. I'll have another in blue-a different blue, I mean. Lighter. Silk. For when it's hot."

The tailor said, "I will have cloth samples sent for my lord to choose from." He nodded at his assistant, who stood against the wall trying to be invisible, to make invisible note of the duke's request.

"Ahem," said Arthur Ghent. "You said you'd decide today about the Talbert money. For your sister."

"Did I? I thought we'd set the whole thing in motion the day my niece arrived." "You said not to. You said to wait."

"Did I?" the duke said again. "Well, I suppose I was worried that she'd bolt. She hasn't bolted, has she?"

"No, my lord," said Ghent's assistant. "Still at Tremontaine House, studying with Venturus."

"Well, then. Send the family the big sum, everything they asked for, as a loan against releasing their entire disputed property at the end of the six months."

"How complicated," Flavia said.

"It wasn't my idea; it's what I have lawyers for."

Arthur Ghent finished his notes and picked up another sheaf of papers, on better paper, some of it scented. "These are this week's invitations. Marlowe wants you to listen to his new soprano-"

"No. It's his mistress. She howls."

"Lord Fitz-Levi wants you for cards Wednesday-"

"On the Hill? No."

"Right. But you've turned him down twice now."

"Invite him to the next thing he can be invited to. Not the wife, though, just him."

"Right." He made a note. "Private theatricals at the, ah," he took a deep breath and said it: "the Gentlemen's League of Self-Pleasure."

The duke crowed. "Never! Tell them I am decadent, not desperate." The secretary's hand wavered above the inkwell. "Never mind," his master said mercifully. "Don't answer."

"Thank you, sir. Now, this is a grateful letter from the Orphans' Asylum, thanking you for the beds and the new roof and inviting you to their Harvest Pageant, where the children will sing, dance and recite."

"Regrets." The duke grimaced. "Just regrets. Ignore the other nonsense."

The Ugly Girl swung her foot under her. "You founded the place. Why don't you want to go?"

"I don't like children," the duke replied.

"Then why put out all that money to preserve them?"

"Because it is wrong to let them die." The duke shook the foam of lace at his cuffs, each flower and petal and leaf twisted thread upon thread by the fingers of an artist. "I did nothing to deserve this. I got it all because I had a grandmother with lots of money who left it to me. Before that I lived in two rooms in Riverside. I saw what happened to the products of a moment's pleasure. Other people do not deserve to starve or to be fucked before they know what the word means, just because they have no one." The beautiful Alcuin had wandered in to hear his final words. He placed a proprietary hand on Tremontaine's silk-covered shoulder. "No one? Then you must get them someone."

"Sometimes," the duke drawled without looking up, "I am almost sure I do not deserveyou ."

Alcuin fiddled with the fall of lace on Tremontaine's collar. "I wish you would not speak that way."

The duke's secretary glanced over at the Ugly Girl. She caught his look and smirked back.

"The nobility of this city have no right to live the way they do," the Duke Tremontaine returned to his observations. "When they undid the monarchy, they revoked the traditional magical rights, not just of kings, but of themselves. They thus have no real right to rule, nor to hold land and profit by others' labors on it. It's odd that nobody's realized that. Though I suppose if anyone tried to say so, he'd be challenged or locked away somewhere, depending on his rank and his lucidity. The Court of Honor, you see, exists not just to legalize noble assassinations but to ensure that only a court of nobles ever has the right to judge a noble's deeds. A neat system, although I believe the privilege of the sword, as they call it, is beginning to show signs of fraying and wear."

"Is that so?" Flavia asked, drawing him out, amused-he did love to lecture-and he obliged: "Most challenges are fought as pure entertainment. Your swordsman gets a scratch, orhis does, and you're done for the day. The two nobles who called challenge on each other know what the fight was about, and usually their friends do as well, and everyone respects the outcome. Nobody asks swordsmen to die anymore just to prove a point of honor. Accidents or infection happen, of course, but as long as your man doesn't expire on the spot, nobody's bothered.

"But the darker side still exists, the practical origin of those little skirmishes. A noble can still hire a swordsman to challenge a nobleman without giving him time to find a professional proxy for himself. Even with all the protocols of formal challenge, at the end of the fight, unless he's amazingly lucky, you've got one dead nobleman. Does privilege of the sword extend to the swordsman who did it? Certainly, as long as he can prove he was in a noble's employ. The privilege belongs to them, after all. But to determine this, the matter is brought before the Court of Honor. That's where the real fun begins. The rules of the Court of Honor are arcane, the judgments colorful and highly personal...it's a perfect charade. I've been through it"-he shuddered-"I know. There's more honesty in Riverside, where all the privilege is about who's stronger and madder and meaner."

"What about your noblewomen ? What's their privilege?"

He held up his arm to test the stretch of the sleeve again. The tailor nodded. "A woman's honor is still the property of her male relatives, according to the Court."

"Naturally."

"Noblewomen have been known to hire swordsmen when they felt a point needed to be made. But it's considered unladylike these days, as I understand it."

"And your niece?"

"What about her?"

"Will she, as a noblewoman, be fighting her own battles on her own behalf, or will she have to hire a manto do it?"

The duke smiled. "Well, that is the question, isn't it? She seems like a peaceable enough child. We'll just have to wait and see."

Cautiously, the tailor eased the duke out of his new jacket, and handed it to the assistant to fold. The duke watched with interest. "I think you fold things better than my valet," he said. "How would you like a new job?" The assistant turned bright red with the inability to answer. "You should seize your moments,"

the duke told him; "they may not come again. This is why it's so hard for tradesmen to advance in this city," he explained to the room at large: "timidity, lack of initiative; that, and the refusal of nobles to let them marry their daughters. You see," he told Flavia, as if their conversation had never been interrupted, "the nobles are going nowhere. The people who've actually done something to get the comforts they enjoy are the ones who are worth something: the merchants and craftsmen-not to mention the farmers, though you can't get rich off little patches of land, you have to have lots of it, and get others to work it for you-You didn't know that, I suppose?"

"I'm not a historian, or an agrarianist. Go on, though; I'm fascinated."

"If the nobles had any sense, they'd marry into families who knew how to fold things properly, instead of working so hard to marry back into each other."

"The trouble with you," the Ugly Girl said, "is that you think you know just what everyone should do, don't you?"