by Andre Nolton
The doors made no sound as they opened, of course, and the only clue he had that Triana had finally emerged was the soft patter of Rennati's footsteps on the heavy carpet.
"My lady, I beg your favor!" Rennati's high, clear voice, with a hint of desperation in it, rang down the hallway. A little judicious magic allowed him to hear every word as she ap-' proached the elven lady.
"My lady," Rennati repeated, as she flung herself to her knees beside the waiting Triana, who had paused beside the open door. "My lady, forgive me—I failed you—I know I have failed you—"
"Indeed you have," Triana said, in a level voice. "The information you gave to me was of little use. You were near Lord Kyrtian only once, and that briefly. And now he has turned you into a mere breeder, which will remove you from the household altogether and occupy your time with things of no interest to me. I am not pleased."
Kyrtian peeked through a crack where the door met the frame. Rennati bent her head, trembling with fear. The poor child wasn't acting, she really was afraid of Triana. It was terribly brave of her to take this step, but it was the only possible way for her to escape Triana's toils, and both she and Kyrtian knew it. "I had no choice, my lady," Rennati replied humbly. "I am only a slave; I have no control over how I am disposed of."
"Hmph." Kyrtian took another cautious peek; Triana stood over Rennati looking down at the girl with a measure of disgust. "If you'd had an ounce or two more of ambition—" She shook her head. "I do not reward incompetence, girl. A good part of your failure is your own fault. You did not make yourself indispensable to Lord Kyrtian."
"Yes, my lady." Rennati couldn't have gotten any lower to the ground without prostrating herself.
Triana prodded at the dancer with her foot. "You've managed to maneuver yourself into your own punishment, fool. You'll be nothing more than a breeder for the rest of your life. And bred to that hideous old man! You can expect to be beaten when you don't please him, and taken like an animal when you do. On the whole, I must say I couldn't have contrived anything better as chastisement." She laughed, a cruel laugh that made even Kyrtian shiver. "I trust he'll make you suitably miserable. Now, you have something of mine, I believe?" She put out her hand.
Rennati, shaking like a willow in a windstorm, pulled the teleson-ring from her finger and managed to place it in Triana's palm. Triana slipped the ring on her own finger, spurned the dancer with her foot, pushing her off-balance so that she sprawled clumsily onto the carpet. With a final, nasty chuckle, Triana stalked off.
Rennati lay where she'd fallen, shaking violently, until Triana was out of sight; Kyrtian and Viridina remained in hiding as well. Once they were both sure she was gone, they both rushed out into the hall—
Only to find that Rennati was shaking, not with fear or in tears, but with the weak laughter of relief. Kyrtian helped her to her feet, and Viridina fussed over her for a moment—a strange sight, that; an elven lady seeing to the welfare of a mere human!
"I'm all right, really I am," Rennati protested at last. "Thank you, my lady, thank you for being so close—but I am all right. I was only afraid that if either of you had to intervene, she would sense something wasn't quite right."
"You did wonderfully well, young lady," Kyrtian told her approvingly. "Wonderfully well. I couldn't have asked for better. I must say that you've shown an ability to play-act that I hadn't expected."
"I was afraid I was going to start laughing when she described poor Gel," Rennati told him, dimpling and coloring prettily. "She couldn't have been more wrong about him—"
"And it's just as well that she doesn't know that. It's my turn to apologize for putting you through all that embarrassment now, and last night," he continued, "and I hope you'll forgive me for it."
"Only if you—" she colored more deeply. "Only if you— don't take back what you said—about me and Gel—"
"My dear child, that is between you and Gel!" he exclaimed, holding up both hands in mock-defense, as both Rennati and Viridina giggled like a pair of young girls. "I have nothing to do with it! If you have the audacity to collar and tame that wretched man, you may have joy of him!"
Stifling their laughter in their hands, Viridina and Rennati retreated into Viridina's suite—for some womanish reason, he had no doubt, perhaps to plan the conquest of poor Gel! Ah, Gel, you wretched man, you haven't a prayer against them! Whatever it was, the important mission had been accomplished; Triana no longer had a spy in his household, and it was vanishingly likely that she'd get another in there. Now he could continue with his own library search, and wait for the two "lost" Elvenlords to be found, for the Council to learn of the "new Wizards" and for the panic to begin.
Triana left that very day, and no one, least of all Kyrtian, was sorry to see her leave, although Lady Moth managed to convey the opposite. With Triana's departure, everything went back to "normal."
Kyrtian, however, gave up trying to use Rennati and Gel as his helpers. Instead, he commandeered a couple of the slaves that had been liberated from the Young Lords, a pair of remarkably intelligent twins. Bred and trained to be household slaves, not handsome enough to be put to "front of the house" duties, they had been wasted both on the menial tasks they'd been assigned and as the fighters that the Young Lords wanted them to be. They quickly learned what he wanted of them, and as they had been taught to read and write, were soon actually helping him with his hunt for information. Once he had identified the author of journals that were too late to be of any interest to him, the boys could pick through the remaining volumes and eliminate any more by the same author. As they shelved these books, the task in front of him began to look a bit less daunting.
Meanwhile Rennati had evidently taken him at his word; she was the "aggressor" in this courtship, and in Kyrtian's opinion, Gel might just as well run up the flag of surrender, because he hadn't a chance in the world. Not that he seemed to be unhappy about the prospect. But it was certainly an odd thing to see tough old Gel wandering about the gardens, eyes faintly clouded with bemusement, holding a basket for the flowers Rennati was selecting to grace the vases of Lady Moth's chambers.
Three days passed, then four, and there was no sign that the two "lost Lords" had yet been discovered. On the one hand, Kyrtian was perfectly happy with this, since it gave him more time among the books.
On the other hand, he grew more anxious with every day that passed, for there was no telling what Lord Kyndreth and the Council were up to, what they were thinking, and perhaps most importantly of all, whether Triana had been convinced that he was not ambitious for a place on the Grand Council as a Great Lord. Only if she was convinced would she in turn convince Kyndreth.
There was no further sign from the Elvenbane, either, but Kyrtian didn't truly expect anything. It had been terribly risky for her to come to him; it would be better for the next meeting to take place somewhere in the wilderness, perhaps while he pursued the false Wizards.
Then, on the fourth day after Triana left, came the summons to the teleson that he had been waiting for. It took all of his self-control to maintain a curious, but calm expression when he greeted Lord Kyndreth's image in the flat glass.
"Something entirely unexpected has come up, my Lord," Kyndreth said, in tones of controlled urgency. "Two minor El-venlords that we thought had somehow been killed on a hunting expedition decades ago have turned up. They were found by two of Lord Cheynar's slaves and brought straight to his manor, and their story—well, it's terrifying."
Ancestors! They managed to walk all the way from the forest to the estate? They must have been exhausted!
"Where were they all this time?" Kyrtian asked, carefully assuming an expression of concern. "I know that forest has an evil reputation, but how could they have been lost for decades?"
"They say that they were held as prisoners by Wizards," Kyndreth continued, "and the accident of a rockfall in the caves where they were held is what allowed them to escape. There is only one problem—the Wizards that held them are not the Wizards with who
m we fought!"
"Ancestors!" Kyrtian exclaimed, falling back a little in feigned shock. "But—that's terrible!"
"It is, and the Council was in an uproar about it," Kyndreth replied with visible unhappiness. "We have to find these creatures and eliminate them. If they are laired up somewhere within striking distance of Cheynar's estate—"
"Then they are too close, however few in number they may be," Kyrtian said firmly. "I will deal with the matter, my Lord. This is precisely the sort of thing my personal slaves are trained for. We will take a small force into the forest to find the place, then return with a larger one and wipe them out."
"I knew I could rely on you," Kyndreth said, with evident relief, and broke the connection.
With a laugh, Kyrtian leapt to his feet, feeling very like a racehorse finally let loose—now he could show what he was really made of; this might have been what he had been training for all of his life.
And let Kyndreth and the others scheme as they would, for he was finally on the right side.
26
Kyrtian's own estate was roughly halfway between Moth s property and Lord Cheynar's, around the perimeter of the ragged circle defined by the outermost Elvenlord estates. Although it might have been shorter to cut through the heart of elven lands, it was quicker to take Moth's Portal to his own property, select the men he wanted, and go from there to the nearest estate with a Portal that he could get access to. In this case, it was the estate of the late unlamented Lord Dyran, which had eventually wound up in the hands of Lord Kyndreth. Dyran's estate bordered on the desert; Cheynar's, between Dyran's land and the rest of the elven-held world, was in well-watered hills that ran up to low, forested mountains that were equally well watered. So much water, in fact, that the estate spent most of the winter shrouded in grey clouds that drizzled continuously. There could not have been a greater contrast in territory, but that wasn't the most interesting part. The interesting part was, beneath those hills and mountains—caves, and a great many of them.
Going home first also allowed him to take Rennati back to the estate. That took one burden off his mind and would give him an excuse to leave Gel as well. Not that he didn't want Gel along—but this would not be a mission where Gel's expertise was needed. Given that he could not be at home, he wanted someone he trusted to be there. Lady Lydiell was clever and cunning, but she was no soldier. If soldiers were needed, Gel could command as well, if not better, than Kyrtian.
As for his own troops, those who were left were by this time heartily tired of real warfare and ready to go back to the farm, field, and household positions they had left. It was time to take them home, too—and by the greatest of good fortune, he would be taking all of them home. There had been only minor casualties among his own people, no deaths at all, and those injuries they sustained were neither crippling nor incapacitating. That was not by accident or entirely by good fortune alone; Kyrtian's men, with their greater expertise in fighting than the Young Lords' conscripts, had shown their clear superiority in the field in all ways.
He was terribly proud of them. The point was, they weren't professional, trained fighters; they were fanners, house-servants, herders. But they had applied themselves with will and enthusiasm to his training, and when called on to use that training, they had done so with all the dedication he could have asked for.
He didn't quite know how to reward them; the kind of great feast he usually held for a successful "campaign" was woefully inadequate as a recompense. And as he shepherded the last of his people through Moth's Portal, he made a mental note to ask his mother her opinion. Of all people, she surely should have some notion.
Finally there were only the three of them left to cross—himself, Gel, and Rennati. And as he watched the other two waiting patiently for the Portal to clear, with Gel's arm openly and protectively around the apprehensive little dancer, he knew with considerable amusement that there was at least one person he had had no difficulty in fitting a reward to. There had been a grain of truth in that pompous and incredibly insulting little speech he'd made in front of Lady Triana; he really did hope that Gel would have a son—or several—to train to take the father's place at Kyrtian's side. No one could have had a better bodyguard—or friend—and Kyrtian was not looking forward to the day when he would have to tell Gel to stand down and let another take his place. But like it or not, the fact was that unless something happened to him, Kyrtian would likely be served by Gel's great-great-great-great-grandchildren. Near-immortality came with its own costs.
He shook off the melancholy thought, and brought his mind back to the present. Lady Lydiell would be very amused, he was sure, when she realized what had happened between Ren-nati and Gel. An inveterate matchmaker, she had been trying to pair Gel off for years. She'd find the current situation entirely to her liking.
She'll have them tucked up in a little cottage or suite of their own in the manor before the two of them get a chance to turn around.
"Go on through, you two," he said, waving at them. He turned to Moth, as they stepped into the utter blackness within the Portal.
"Are you going to be all right?" he asked. "Can you keep those idiot children from trying to start the rebellion all over again, or somehow getting caught?"
She laughed. "The day I can't keep an unruly pack of puppies like that under my thumb, now that they've had a good scare, is the day you might as well start planning my funeral-games. You and your boys showed them that everything they'd won against their fathers was due to their incredible good luck, the Wizards' iron, and the Great Lords' incompetence. They're happy enough to be escaping the hounds, and I imagine they'll stay that way for some little while."
He had to smile at that. "I should have known better than to ask; I should be asking them if they think they'll be safe from you."
"Indeed you should." Moth smiled, and winked. "Two or three of those lads are rather toothsome, and still young enough to train properly. I'm not too old to remarry." She grinned as he laughed. "Now, get on with you. By now, poor Lydiell is probably wondering if the Portal's broken down."
He embraced her, then stepped across the threshold.
As soon as he recovered from the shock of crossing, which was always disorienting, he saw that his mother had already sorted out the new relationship between Gel and Rennati. And much to Gel's surprise and bemusement, she had taken it all in stride and with considerable aplomb—and from the sound of things, had begun making plans for them without waiting for Kyrtian.
Heh. I wonder if he expected Mother to be shocked or outraged that Rennati has managed to capture him? He should have known better than that—given all the matchmaking she's done all over the estate! He's just lucky she never seriously took it into her head to find a woman for him, or he 'd have been tied up long before this.
"Our people will expect a wedding-ceremony and a feast, of course," she was explaining to a bewildered Rennati. "Our Gel is a person of great importance here, and if we did anything less, people would feel cheated. We'll have to have all of the fighters and their families, of course—I wonder if we could have the whole thing in the open air? I can't think of any building on the estate large enough to fit everyone inside—"
"But—" Rennati said, feebly, looking alarmed.
"Oh, I know you've no idea what to do, child," Lydiell continued calmly. "But our people never had their traditions wrenched from them and buried past retrieval. They have their priests and their rituals exactly as they did before we came on the scene. Don't concern yourself with it; they know what to do, and if you can learn a clever dance, you can certainly learn a simple wedding ceremony. Now, this could fit in very nicely with the general homecoming; your wedding can be the start of a week of festivities and—"
"Mother, my love," Kyrtian interrupted her. "Don't forget, with all your planning, I have to be off with a select crew on Lord Kyndreth's Wizard-hunt as soon as may be. This will have to look as if I consider it to be as urgent as he does."
"So Gel tells me," Lyd
iell said serenely. "All the more reason to have the wedding as soon as possible. I have been planning these homecoming celebrations for a fortnight, and you will be here for at least the first day and night of them! And if Kyndreth gets impatient, I will tell him that you needed the time to select exactly the right group of scouts and hunters."
Kyrtian bowed to the inevitable. "Yes, Mother," he said obediently, and beat a hasty retreat to his own suite, leaving Gel and Rennati to face his formidable mother and all her plans alone.
A coward's ploy, and he would surely hear all about it from Gel once the Sargeant got away. But in the meanwhile—
He can take care of himself. At least for a while. Once Rennati gets over being dazed, she 'II probably join forces with mother, the females against the poor, helpless male. I've never seen a woman that could resist an opportunity for a celebration and a new gown. Gel won't have a chance.
But oh, the more he thought about it, the more he hoped that his own time to wed wouldn't arrive anytime soon.
I think I'll run off and have Moth take care of everything. I'll hide in her library until the very last moment, so no one can swarm over me.
He pushed open the doors to his own rooms and sighed; it seemed an age since he'd been here, and the sight of his own quarters was very welcome.
But more welcome still was the bathroom, the ready tub, and the smiling servants waiting to help him.
He didn't stop for their help; he threw off his clothes and plunged into the hot water, relaxing completely in the penetrating heat, as he had not been able to do since he left. Much as he loved and trusted Lady Moth, she had all those Young Lords still lurking on her premises, and Lady Triana's unexpected arrival only proved that even the formidable Lady Morthena could be surprised by unexpected visitors. Furthermore, she admitted later that she had no notion how many keys to her Portal her late husband had handed about. It could be many, it could be few, but the fact was they probably existed. And if anyone was likely to ferret those keys out, it would be Kyndreth, Tri-ana, or Aelmarkin. As a result, he had not really been able to relax, even while on her estate.
