The Adept was right. It was time to teach her a lesson; time to put the leash on her.
And he knew exactly the bait for the trap. Hulda was tiring of her mule driver (in no small part because she was using him to exhaustion), but Ancar had anticipated that and had found a replacement a week ago.
This one, a slave - Ancar regretted that his tastes ran to women, and had set his agent to looking for a female counterpart to him - was altogether a remarkable specimen. The agent claimed he had been bred and schooled, like a warhorse, for the private chamber of a lady of wealth from Ceejay. She had met with an accident - quite remarkably, it was a real accident - and the agent had acquired the slave from the innkeeper to whom her lodging-monies were owed. It was then that he had discovered the young man's talents, when he found the boy in bed with his wife....
He was, fortunately for Ancar, a man of phegmatic temper and a man with his eye on the main chance. He had realized at once that this was an incident of little import. His marriage was one of convenience. The boy was a slave - whom would he tell? And who would believe him if he did speak? The woman would not dare to speak, for she would be the one disgraced if she did. The merchant's reputation was safe enough, provided he rid his household of the boy and sent him far, far away. All he needed to do would be to find a buyer - and he knew he had one in Ancar.
He persuaded his wife that she would not be punished and received such a remarkable tale of the lad's skill, training, and prowess, that he had sent a messenger to the King straight away. Ancar had bought the boy immediately, sight unseen, on the basis of that report, and had set him to work on one of the chambermaids, spying on the two to see if the reports were true.
They were more than true, and Ancar had come very close to envying that fortunate chambermaid. When the lad was through with her, she literally could not move, and she slept for an entire day.
Since then, the boy had been schooled as a page and kept strictly celibate. Reports had him frantic to exercise his craft. He should be quite ready to please Hulda now.
Ancar put the plan in motion, beginning by ordering roughly half of Hulda's staff replaced that very hour, and slipping the boy in with the replacements. The rest would follow, for the slave had been conditioned that any female he called 'mistress' must be pleased. Hulda would not be able to resist his fresh, innocent fairness, especially in contrast to her swarthy muleteer. She would set out to seduce him, and by the time she realized that the seduction was the other way around, she would be enjoying herself so much she would not think to look any further than the pleasures of the moment.
Ancar waited until his spies told him that Hulda had retired, and not alone. He reckoned that four candlemarks would be enough to give them together, and timed his spells accordingly. Her chamber was guarded against combative magics, but not against this. Then again, she had never dreamed he would be audacious enough to use controlling spells against her.
The spells fell into place, softly as falling snow. Ancar waited a candlemark or two more, then moved in with his escort of guards.
No one tried to stop him; the guards at her doors were all his. But he did not come bursting into her chambers - no, he had the doors opened slowly, carefully, so as not to startle the boy.
After all, he might have use for such a talent some other time.
The boy awakened instantly, and looked up from the wild disarray of the bedclothes, his long blond hair falling charmingly over one sleepy, frightened blue eye. Ancar put his finger to his lips, then motioned to the boy to take himself out of the room.
The slave slipped out of the bed so quietly that he did not even stir the sheets. He did not even stop to gather up his garments; one of the guardsmen, flushing a little, stopped him long enough to hand him a robe before he escaped back to the servants' quarters. Ancar made a mental note to reward the man; a naked page skittering through the halls might cause some awkward comment. Quick thinking deserved a reward.
Ancar motioned to his guards to take up positions around the bed. Then he cleared his throat noisily.
Hulda reacted much faster than he had expected her to. She came up out of the bed like an enraged animal, fully attack-ready, her face a mask of pure anger.
'You!' she spat, seeing Ancar standing at the foot of her bed. 'How dare you!' And she lashed out at him with her magic, as she would at a disobedient brat that needed a severe correction.
Tried to, that is. Ancar's controlling spells stopped her in mid-strike.
He had expected her to be dumbfounded, perhaps to make another attempt. He had never thought she would go from 'correction' into an all-out attempt at attack.
He stepped back a pace as he felt his spells shuddering under the impact of her attempt to break them - break through them, and break him. One look at her expression told him that she knew -
Knew that her control of him was over. Knew that he now intended to make an obedient servant of her. He was now the enemy, and she would destroy him if she could.
