by Andre Nolton
Numbly, Rennati took the ring off and handed it to her—then automatically dropped to her knees beside the couch she had been seated on, and bowed her head, clasping her hands behind her back, waiting for the Lady to punish her.
Her vivid imagination painted a dozen pictures for her of what to expect in the next few moments, as her heart beat so rapidly she had trouble breathing, and she shivered with fear. Her mouth dried, her throat closed, and she felt as if she was about to faint. She would be punished, of course. She had betrayed her Master—at the behest of another Elvenlord, true, but that was no excuse. No slave could betray her master and be caught, and expect to escape without punishment. At the least, she would be sent out into the fields. At the worst—
"What on earth are you doing, child?" Lady Lydiell asked, in an astonished voice, which turned exasperated as Rennati remained where she was. "Oh, for—get up little fool! I'm not going to hurt you! And look at me!"
Automatically Rennati leapt obediently to her feet, turning her astonished eyes to the Lady's face as her heart skipped beats and her chest tightened along with her throat. For a moment, she thought she would faint.
Lady Lydiell frowned, but not in such a way as—say—Lady Triana had frowned. This frown was just annoyance, not something that would freeze the blood. It was an impersonal frown—there was no real anger in it. Though Rennati's skin felt cold and clammy, her heart slowed, just a little, and the tension in her chest eased.
"'Sit down," Lady Lydiell said shortly, and Rennati obeyed, her eyes fixed on the Lady's face. "And tell me about this ring. Who gave it to you? Why? And what have you been telling him?"
"Her," Rennati corrected automatically, and clapped her hand to her mouth in renewed alarm. But when no slap, sting of the collar, or indeed, any other correction came, she took her courage in both hands, and began her tale.
There was no reason to lie; if Lady Lydiell cared to, she could have it all out of her in a moment, either under the influence of drugs or by application of pain through the collar. And at this point there was no chance that Lady Triana would keep her side of the bargain, which had specified that Rennati remain undetected. So Rennati told everything, from the moment that Lady Triana picked her out of a slave-sale to the last thing that she had reported. As she spoke, Lady Lydiell's frown softened, until when at last Rennati fell silent, the elven lady's expression was no worse than thoughtful and slightly disapproving.
As she spoke, and Lydiell's expression eased, so, too, did the feeling of panic and fear, the awful sick feeling in her stomach. As she finished her last words, Lydiell nodded.
"It could have been worse," she said when Rennati fell silent. "You haven't given that creature much that's going to be of any use to her, and forewarned is forearmed as they say." She watched Rennati for a few moments, then appeared to make up her mind about something. "Stand up, child," she said. "I want you to come with me."
The fear returned, redoubled, and her heart raced again, her breath coming quickly as she tried to get air past the terrible tightness of her throat and chest. Now it comes, Rennati thought, heart sinking with dread. But, of course, she couldn't disobey. She followed Lady Lydiell down the stairs, past Gi-anna and Kara—
And out past the barrier at the door that kept unauthorized slaves from getting into the harem—and the concubines from leaving it. There was a faint tingle on her skin as she passed through the shimmering curtain of magic power, and she shivered. Now she was outside, and away from the scant protection of the presence of the other two. What was Lady Lydiell going to do with her? Hand her over to the gladiators?
"You're intelligent, and I don't think you're a bad child at heart," Lydiell said, as if to herself, then looked over her shoulder at Rennati, who shrank inside herself when those penetrating green eyes met hers. "I'm usually considered a good judge of character, by the way."
"Yes, my lady," Rennati whispered, since it seemed that Lady Lydiell was waiting for an answer as they walked down a marble-faced hallway.
"I'm going to take a chance with you," Lydiell continued, still holding her with that,sharp gaze. "I'm going to do something that has never been done with a human from outside our own circle, born and raised among us. I'm going to show you exactly what you've jeopardized with your actions."
And for the next several hours, Rennati found herself hauled all over Lord Kyrtian's estate, seeing things that left her gaping, too overwhelmed to speak. This—this place was nothing like anywhere she had ever been before!
At first, it only seemed as if this was just an ordinary estate, although the Master and Mistress of it were unusually kind to their slaves and treated them extraordinarily well. First, the Lady took her to every nook and cranny of the Great House— not only through the rooms that she and her son and the other Elvenlords of the household used, but into the kitchen, the still-room, the laundry, the sewing and weaving room. Everywhere the Lady was greeted with respect, though not servility; more importantly, she didn't expect or seem to demand servility. In every other household Rennati had been in, slaves were expected never to speak unless directly addressed, never to raise their eyes to the mistress's face unless given permission, and never, ever, to do as these slaves did, and actually approach the mistress with a report or a query. But Rennati quickly began to realize that Lady Lydiell not only was incredibly approachable, she was also greeted with actual affection by her slaves.
Affection? From slaves? How was that possible?
"What do you think of our home so far?" Lydiell asked, as they moved outside and headed for a long, low building. This was a question that would have been appropriate if asked of an equal or one only slightly inferior, but not of a concubine. Concubines were not supposed to have opinions. They were barely supposed to think.
The question surprised her into honesty, not the least because the slaves in the kitchen had actually called cheerful and welcoming greetings when the Lady had first entered, leaving Ren-nati dumbfounded. "I don't understand," she said. "They like you! How can slaves like you?"
She hadn't really expected a reply, unless it came as a reproof. But what Lady Lydiell said in response to the impulsive exclamation shocked her to the core and left her speechless.
"They like me because they are not slaves," Lydiell said. "Neither they, nor their ancestors, were ever slaves; here, in this one manor, no Elvenlord has ever enslaved a human."
What? Rennati felt her heart actually stop for a moment.
"They are in my employ," Lady Lydiell continued. "They are my helpers, and we respect each other. Kyrtian and I protect them from the outside world, as his father did for their ancestors, and his grandfather for theirs, and for that protection, they and their families serve us," the Lady said quietly. "We have never had slaves here, and never shall, if we are left alone by the Lady Trianas of the world."
It was such an astonishing statement that it had to be a lie. It was simply not possible that there was a family of the Elven-lords that hadn't enslaved humans!
And yet—how could it be a lie? Why should the Lady make up such an astonishing story? What purpose would it serve? And how could she have gotten all of her slaves to act in such a natural way, unless it was true and not a lie?
As Rennati continued to follow Lady Lydiell out into the fields, to the cottages of the farm-laborers, to the barracks of the fighters, she had been protected by a core of utter disbelief, but the more she saw, the more that core eroded. If the Lady had only shown her the household servants, she would not have trusted what she saw, but here were people who should never have set eyes on the lady, who, if they ever by some chance had seen her should never recognize the plainly-dressed Lady for the authority that she was. But time after time, the Lady was met with welcome and greeting, with the kind of common talk that might be shared with a trusted human overseer, but never with an Elvenlord, and she herself asked questions about the farming, training, or the slaves themselves and their families (families? Impossible!) that showed she was intimately fam
iliar with the minutiae of their lives.
Even so, Rennati clung to her stubborn refusal to believe in this miracle of Elven kindness, right up until the two of them approached a set of small buildings constructed around a garden. Rennati could not imagine what they could be, but to her incredulous ears came the sound of high, shrill voices—the voices of children—
As Lady Lydiell came into view of the garden, the children playing there caught sight of her, and ran toward her, shrieking greetings at the tops of their lungs.
"Lady Lidi! Lady Lidi!" "Come see my puppy!" "Will you make us sweeties?" "Lady Lidi, Jordy found a frog!"
Lady Lydiell only smiled serenely as the horde of small children (some of them very grubby indeed) swarmed all around her, holding up flowers, a frog, a puppy, dolls, and toy bows and arrows for her approval. As Rennati stared, her mouth dropping completely open, the Lady gave each of the children her gravest attention.
Now she knew why there were no breeding pens, no mass nurseries, no other signs that human slaves were bred here with the same care to selection and carelessness as to feelings as were cattle and horses. The cluster of small buildings were— houses. Houses for families. Families who were allowed to keep their children with them. And since there were no breeding pens, this must be the norm here, not the exception, as it was on the estate that had bred Rennati.
These children were utterly fearless in the presence of the chatelaine of the manor. They must never have received so much as an unkindness from an Elvenlord.
And look at the Lady herself! She couldn't have been more patient with this horde of exuberant children if she had been their nursemaid or beloved relative!
Rennati let fall the last of her disbelief, and felt the world whirling around her, turned utterly upside down.
"Will you please make us sweeties, Lady Lidi?" asked one of the boys, polite, but bold as a young rooster.
Lady Lydiell laughed. "All right. One flower each. Go pick fresh ones." She turned to Rennati, who clutched a beam embedded in the corner of the house beside her, feeling actually dizzy. "Elven women are trained to use their magic in small ways rather than large—you'll find most of them making foolish sculptures out of flowers, but that's a bastardization of what we originally did in Evelon. We healed wounds and sometimes sickness—but most important of all, we made the inedible edible. Lady Moth taught me that little trick, which she learned from her mother. I still use it to make honey-sweets from flowers for the children—ah, here they come!"
There were plenty of flowers in the little gardens that Rennati now noticed around the houses, and it hadn't taken the children long to pick out which flower they wished made into a treat. She noticed that the girls generally chose roses; well, she was partial to rose-petal candies herself. Many of them sucked thorn-wounded fingers, but none of them complained. The boys seemed to prefer sunflowers, dahlias, anything large. But one little girl at the rear of the group came up holding a single violet, and looked to Lady Lydiell with eyes filled with disappointment.
"Sahshi, what's the matter?" Lydiell asked, seeing her and her distress at once, and motioning for the others to let her through.
"You said only one," Sahshi whispered imploringly. "But I like vi'lets—"
"Oh dear—children, do you think it's fair for Sahshi only to have one tiny violet?" Lydiell applied to the rest of the children— and had they been pen-born and nursery-raised, where it was every child for himself, Rennati knew what the answer would have been. But not here.
"No!" came the clamor, instantly, and without prompting, several of them ran to nearby gardens, bringing back bunches of violets that they pressed into Sahshi's hands until the child couldn't hold any more.
Her face glowing with happiness, Sahshi held up the violets for Lady Lydiell to transmute—and then gave Rennati a further surprise (as if she needed one at this point) by sharing out her sweets with the others as they waited in their turn for Lady Lydiell to get to them. This was probably just as well, for had she eaten them all herself she would surely have earned herself a bellyache, but never before had Rennati seen a child of the lowest, field worker class who would not have immediately shoveled a treat into her mouth with both hands and devoured it as fast as she could, stuffing herself until she was sick because it would be ages before she might taste any other good thing.
It was all, in a word, impossible.
When Lydiell had finished with the last flower, the children thanked her and streamed back to their playground, a small square surrounded by rough-hewn logs enclosing an area of soft sand that held stumps and bars to climb on, a board with seats on either end poised on a hewn block of wood that allowed the ends to rise and fall with children balanced on seats there, and other things that the children seemed to enjoy swarming over.
These things all showed signs of a great deal of wear; they hadn't been placed there recently. This was no artificial setting made for her benefit, to sway her opinion.
As if my opinion, the attitude of a mortal, actually means something! But to Lady Lydiell it did, it patently did.
Lydiell turned back to face Rennati with a quizzical smile on her face. "Well?" she said, pointedly.
Rennati felt cold and hot at the same time, and there was a faint buzzing in her ears. "What—is—this—place?" she asked, thickly.
"Ah. That is a very good question." Lady Lydiell took Ren-nati's arm, as if she was Rennati's oldest friend. "Come back to the manor with me. I think, when you have had something to drink to steady you, you will have a great many more questions, and I will try to answer them."
In the end, Rennati thought she would never come to an end of her questions. Lydiell answered each and every one, with infinite patience as they sat in elegant chairs on either side of a little table on one of the outdoor terraces. Here she was—eating dainties that, in her excitement, she did not truly taste; drinking something that might just as well have been water for all the attention she paid to it; and arranged across from a highborn el-ven lady on one of the private terraces as if she, too, was Elvenborn. The sun shone down on the gardens below them, although they were shaded by a fine cloth canopy of tapestried linen. A few women worked in the gardens below, the very picture of bucolic contentment—well-clothed in practical leggings and long, loose linen tunics, protected from the sun by broad-brimmed straw hats, and no supervisor in sight.
Slowly she began to really understand just what it was that Lord Kyrtian's family protected here. That was when the enormity of her own treachery dawned on her, hitting her with the force of a blow. If she had still been able to weep, she would have, then; she'd have broken down and howled with the pain of what she had done to these amazing Elvenlords and their human charges. She wanted to; her throat closed and she nearly choked on her unshed tears, but weeping had long since been trained out of her, and she could not cry, not even for this. Concubines did not weep; it spoiled their looks, and only annoyed their masters.
But the depth of her despair could not be measured, and she could not simply sit there and bear it invisibly.
She slipped from her seat and sank down to her knees, then prostrated herself on the stone of the terrace, not daring to look at the Lady lest she crack into a thousand pieces.
"Ah," said the lady softly. "Now you understand."
It was hard, hard to speak; hard to get words around that lump of guilt and pain in her throat. "Yes." It was all she could manage.
"Now I have questions for you," Lady Lydiell said, in a voice that warned she would insist on answers.
Rennati could not bear to look into the face of the one she had so vilely betrayed, and she remained where she was, prostrated on the stone of the terrace, speaking brokenly to the soft grey slab just below her nose. The lady's questions went on as long as Rennati's had, every detail of her life, of her bargain with Lady Triana, pulled from her gently, but inexorably.
It seemed to go on forever, and when she was done, she felt drained of everything except pain. There was nothing that L
ady Lydiell did not know about her now, and surely, surely, the punishment she so richly deserved would be forthcoming.
The lady finally made a sound—a weary sigh. "Get up, child, and sit down so that I can talk to you properly."
Rennati couldn't move—but a moment later, she found herself being moved, as Lady Lydiell took her elbows, lifted her to her feet and replaced her in her seat, as effortlessly as if she weighed nothing. Perhaps, for the Lady, she was near-weightless; she was clearly a past mistress of Elven magic, and how could Rennati know what was and was not possible in magic?
"Now," the Lady said, her eyes boring into Rennati's as if to stare into her very thoughts. "You understand what you have done to us. Are you prepared to make amends?"
By now Rennati had exhausted all emotions but one—hope. And underneath all that heavy, black despair, hope stirred and eased the constriction of her throat enough to let her breathe a little. Numbly, she nodded.
Speaking carefully and exactly, Lady Lydiell outlined what Rennati was to do. And Rennati agreed to it, without ever once making a single objection or asking what would happen to her when the inevitable moment came when she was no longer useful.
It had been a long, very hard day, most of it spent in the saddle, and Kyrtian was already wearied when his mother called him.
So far, the campaign against the Young Lords was turning into something other than the hard-slogging battle he'd been led to believe it would be. In fact, if it wasn't for the evidence of the devastated estates he'd seen, with manors half-burned and fields left to weeds, it would have been something of a farce.
Because the moment he took command of the army—quite literally from the moment he took command of the army—the Young Lords' direct opposition melted away. Quite simply, they turned and ran.
Now, as a commander, he had to agree with their tactics. He brought with him his own people, who would have strengthened the line as nothing else could have. The next pitched battle would have been a conclusive one. The Young Lords' army was not near any area that could be used as a secure base, and supplies had to be problematic, even with the use of magic. If he had been in their situation, he'd have done the same.
