"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 whom 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.