I can probably entertain Levan for months, even years, and as long as I entertain him, I am too valuable for him to eliminate. I am also too valuable for him to permit anyone else to get rid of me. I can trust Levan Pendleton, but within strict limits.
And those limits would be determined mostly by what T'fyrr himself could or could not supply. An added benefit was T'fyrr's vast collection of music, much of it from strange cultures. Levan liked music, and to have someone who could not only perform it but explain the meaning or the story was something he had not anticipated. This could be a very good position to be in, so long as T'fyrr did not overestimate the limits of his entertainment value.
Levan Pendleton would be most useful simply as a patron. If people didn't like to go to dinner with him_they would also be disinclined to try to eliminate or disgrace one of his friends.
Lord Secretary Atrovel. Now there was a puzzle! He seemed completely shallow, a sparkling brook that was all babble and shine on the surface, but was nothing more than a lively skin of water, unable to support or hold anything of value. Yet the man was witty, and while it was possible to be witty and be stupid, it wasn't very likely.
Atrovel had access to everything the King did and said. That was his job. Now, it was probably not a bad idea to have a flippant fellow for a secretary, a man who really didn't care a great deal about the correspondence and documents he handled. But still_T'fyrr had the feeling that that sparkling surface was not all there was to Atrovel.
Perhaps, though, the deepest thing about him is his pride. He was certainly a man who had no doubts whatsoever about his own worth, and had no modesty about it, either. He would be the first to tell you just how important he was.
That might have been what T'fyrr sensed: beneath the flippant exterior was a man with a deep sense of pride in himself. If that was true, then the worst thing one could do to Lord Atrovel would be to harm his pride, to make him look foolish. He would never forgive that, and as Secretary he had access to the means to take revenge. Certain papers could fall into the hands of an enemy, perhaps... certain others vanish before they could be signed.
Lord Atrovel could be trusted_warily. And T'fyrr would have to be very careful of that touchy little man's feelings.
Oh, this is all too much to think about_Yet there remained one more human that T'fyrr sensed he must consider tonight, before he slept.
High King Theovere.
Now there_there was a puzzle and a question more complicated than that of Lord Atrovel.
For one thing, he is not sane. He is not rational. He has mood changes that do not necessarily correspond to what is going on around him, and his ability to concentrate is not good. His priorities are skewed. His Advisors don't care, because his insanity gives them leeway to do anything they really want. The problem is, what caused this? Theovere was not the man he once was. Harperus had been quite emphatic about that. High King Theovere had been well-respected, if not precisely beloved; he had kept every one of the Twenty Kingdoms under his careful scrutiny. So what happened? Why did he suddenly begin to lose interest in seeing things well-governed?
Was it a lack of interest? Was he ill, in some way that simply didn't show itself on the surface? There were certainly hints of that in the childishness, the petulance, the obsessive interest in music and other trivialities.
And yet_and yet there was still something of the old King there as well. King Theovere wanted T'fyrr the way a child wants a new toy, yes, but there was something else beneath that childish greed.
He is using me. Something in him is still vaguely aware that there is trouble in his Kingdoms, trouble involving nonhumans, and he is using me, he said so himself. I am to provide an example of excellence and tolerance. And I don't think the Advisors are truly aware that he is using me in that way, even though they heard him say so. They don't believe he could still have that much interest outside his little world of Bards and Musicians.
So, was there something there that T'fyrr could touch, perhaps even something he could awaken?
I think so. In spite of the childishness, the pettiness_there is something there. I believe that I like him, or rather, I like what he could be. There is a King inside that child, still, and the King wants out again.
At some point, King Theovere had been an admirable enough leader that his bodyguards were still inspired to a fanatic loyalty. A man simply did not inspire that kind of loyalty just because he happened to have a title.
I wish I could talk to one of the bodyguards, honestly, T'fyrr thought wistfully. It would never happen, though. They had absolutely no reason to trust him. For all they knew, he was just another toy, this one presented to the King by a foreigner instead of one of his Advisors, but a toy and a distraction, nevertheless.
I don't want to be a toy, and I especially don't want to be a distraction. I want to remind him of
