Even the disappearance (and possible death) of his swordsman has not led the Mad Duke Tremontaine to give up his debauched and sometimes deadly ways. And he has not put aside his penchant for whimsies. He pursues an on-again, off-again lawsuit that is impoverishing his only sister. And his newest impulse may prove fatal for his sister's innocent, country-bred daughter, Alec's 15-year-old niece, Lady Katherine Samantha Campion Talbert.

Although her future is clouded by the possibility of financial ruin, Katherine has the same expectations as any other young lady of quality. She is sure she will make a dazzling debut in the City Season and win a handsome, wealthy husband of good family. Then her Uncle Alec sends for her. It seems that Katherine can save her mother and brothers from ruin—but only if she goes to the city to live with the Mad Duke and become his ... swordsman.

Despite his dissolute reputation and his previous relationship with the swordsman St. Vier, Duke Tremontaine has no sexual designs on his niece. However, what he requires of Katherine is nearly as improper. For six months, she will wear no dress, but only a man's clothing; and in that time, she will learn how to use a sword to defend her uncle's oft-threatened life. But can the privilege of the sword be extended to a female? And what changes will result when the well-bred young lady moves to the squalid Riverside district and consorts not only with decadent nobles and sword-wielding bodyguards, but with bold, handsome serving boys and with beautiful actresses who share passionate kisses?

A triumphant return to Riverside

In 1987, Ellen Kushner made her novel debut and introduced readers to the world of Riverside with Swordspoint. This brilliantly written, astonishingly assured fantasy explored a world slantingly reminiscent of those found in the novels of Jane Austen, the Regency romances of Georgette Heyer and the historical novels of Dorothy Dunnett. Yet Riverside was a world unlike any other, in or out of the fantasy field. It was a world of high manners and low culture, in which words could be a weapon more devastating than the sword. And it was a world to which Kushner returned, in 2002, with The Fall of the Kings, a novel written in collaboration with Delia Sherman and set two generations after Swordspoint. The Privilege of the Sword (2006) marks another revisitation of Riverside—a return to the Swordspoint era, some years after the disappearance of Alec's lethal lover, the swordsman St. Vier.

In the mind of anyone who has read Swordspoint, the question is: Is The Privilege of the Sword as good as Swordspoint? The answer is: Pretty damned close! The prose is as beautifully wrought. The characterizations are as acutely complex. The swordfights are as thrilling. The insights into the swords(wo)man's mind are as rapier-sharp. And the words can be just as devastating. But there are pleasing differences. The Privilege of the Sword alternates a Swordspoint-style third-person omniscient viewpoint with Katherine Talbert's first-person narrative. And, as befits Katherine's naive young outsider's viewpoint, the novel focuses less on the deadly interactions and intrigues of powerful men and women and more on Katherine's entry into the confusing, dangerous, exhilarating worlds of both adulthood and womanhood.

The Privilege of the Sword has a couple of weak points, in its rather rushed climax and a conclusion that is both fairytale-ish and a tad ambiguous. Just who did Katherine—with her budding, potentially sexual relationships with both a high-born young lady and a handsome serving lad—end up with, anyway? Perhaps either, perhaps both, but readers will just have to guess. Still, readers won't mind the conclusion's "nearly-all-wishes-are-granted" quality; they'll be too busy rejoicing for Katherine. (And by the end, readers will know the fate of Alec's original swordsman, Richard St. Vier.)