Elvenborn

Here was a large, well-lit room, furnished with comfortable chairs in which several women were seated, sewing diligently. There was a large table covered with a piece of fabric at the far side of the room, and a woman with a wickedly-bladed pair of scissors made deft cuts in it, folding and laying aside the pieces she had made as she went along. Bolts of fabric were arrayed in a rack along one wall, ribbons and other trim were wound around wooden cones on pegs, and spools of thread were arranged in little racks beside them. He put his need to the chief of the ladies, a formidable dame with silver-streaked hair, ex­plaining the effect he wanted, and why. She pursed her lips and frowned.

'My lord—do you realize what you are asking when you re­quest common uniform tunics for the entire estate? Aye, we've enough seed-sack material about, but no time—even a simple tabard with no hems would need side and shoulder seams, and it'd be so crude it would look makeshift —'

'Dye,' interrupted one of the women engaged in some mys­terious task that seemed to involve the edges of a great deal of fabric that pooled on either side of her. 'Don't bother with making anything new, just fire up dye-pots and have everyone come in and dunk an old tunic and trews, so you get the look of wear as well as having it look uniform.'

'Oh, well-thought!' the older woman exclaimed, her brow clearing. 'That might be a problem, mightn't it—if it looked as if everyone in the place had new clothes!'

'For color—black'd be best, walnut-black the cheapest, and

we've got plenty of that; soon or late, everybody needs some bit of black, and that way I doubt there'll be much complaining about spoiling something good.' The woman was very pleased with her ingenuity, and so were Kyrtian and her supervisor.

'Aye, that's the way! Thenkee, Margyt!' The head seamstress beamed and patted Kyrtian on the shoulder as if he was a small boy. 'Don't worry your head about it, my young Lord, we'll han­dle this for you; when the day comes, everybody'U be making a nice depressing background.' She actually pushed him —gently, but pushed him, nevertheless—out the door. He didn't resist; in fact, he was rather amused at the situation. He'd had no idea how things were run on the domestic side, but clearly this woman was as much a 'commander' in her own ranks as Gel was in his!

And he had no doubt that she would get the job done, either. She had the air about her that said she would ride right over the top of anyone and anything to complete whatever she'd promised.

He went back to his own preparations, calling in each of the supervisors of work-parties and explaining to them what he wanted done—the burrs and all—and why. He'd discovered a very long time ago that if people knew why they were being asked to do something that seemed senseless, they were much more likely to comply.

'Now, I don't want anyone to start getting too creative,' he warned. 'Don't let anyone go maim himself, or try to counter­feit plague or something, but if people get other ideas about how to look less than happy and healthy, let them go to it. Par­ticularly I'm a bit worried about the little children giving things away—the older ones will be all right if you put it to them as being important, but the littlest are used to running right up to any stranger and saying what they think.'

'There're several of the parents figuring on that now, my lord,' one of the supervisors assured him. 'If nothing else, everybody's agreed that we can hide the littlest off somewhere nobody'll see them, all in a group. Perhaps we could take them out into the woods, and let them have a camping-excursion. Leave it to us, we'll take care of it. Tell them it's a holiday treat, and they'll be good as lambs.'

So many details—as soon as Kyrtian thought he'd dealt suc­cessfully with the last, another occurred to him. It wasn't until days later that his mother approached him as he was arranging with one of the building crews to make 'alterations' to the workers' quarters. It had occurred to him by then that it was un­usual enough for his people to have their own little homes and villages instead of being herded into vast warehouses when they weren't working—and he'd better have their quarters look shabby and ill-made!

Lady Lydiell waited patiently as he and the builders quickly worked out what was needed; it was pretty clear that she wanted to speak with him alone, so he dismissed them as soon as he could, and closed the door of his own new office behind them.

She sat with a rustle of silk and a swirl of scarlet skirts. 'You told me to come to you when I had your harem, and I have,' she said simply, and the words hit him like a splash of cold water in his face. 'They're ready for you to prepare them.'

He didn't allow the shock to freeze his thoughts, though. 'I don't have anything on my plate at the moment, so I had best see to them, then,' he told her, and was pleased to see a bit of surprise in her eyes that he was willing to deal with the un­pleasant duty so quickly. She knew that he hated meddling with humans' minds through their collars, especially for a purpose like this—

But on the whole, he'd rather just get it over with so that he wouldn't have to dwell on it.

'That's fine,' she replied quickly, getting to her feet with that grace he admired so much and was so much a part of her. 'Come along; I've converted your old nursery to a harem; it was the most secure suite in the manor and the only one not in use.'

'It had to be the most secure, didn't it?' he chuckled, opening the door for her. 'Not only did you have to worry about some­thing getting in at me, you had to worry about me getting out!'

'And a mischievous escape-artist you were, too,' she re­torted. 'Well, I can tell you that I am very proud of Tenebrinth, and you will be, too, when you see these women. With all of the upheavals, the slave-trade has been very much disrupted—'

'Which I will not shed tears over,' he responded, with a hint of a frown.

'Nevertheless, it has made his task harder.' The look she gave back to him was one of reproach. 'Many of the slave-markets have been closed down, and others have only the most meager of selection. On the other hand, if it hadn't been so dis­rupted, I doubt we would have found three women so perfectly suited to our purposes. I doubt that even the great Lord Kyn-dreth will wonder why your harem is so small, once he sees these girls.'

'Oh?' Now his curiosity was piqued.

She nodded, her hair falling in a graceful curve across her brow as she did so. She pushed it back with an impatient hand. 'Firstly, I very much doubt that anyone other than their trainer and former owner have ever seen them, which makes it much easier to carry off the fiction that you would have owned them yourself for several years. Secondly, if the trade were not so disrupted, I doubt if we would have been able to get them at all; they'd have been snapped up before they reached the greater markets.'

Now he was surprised. 'Are they that attractive, then?' he asked, his curiosity more than piqued.

'They are not precisely great beauties, although they are quite handsome—well, make that judgment for yourself.' By this time they had reached the door—and now guarded—of his former nursery. The guards stepped aside, faces as expression­less as statues, and Lady Lydiell opened the door, gesturing to him to go in ahead.

He did so, feeling the faint tingle of a second 'door' as he crossed the threshold that would prevent the women from crossing it until it was taken down. That was usual enough in harems to keep them out of the Lady's Bower; it was necessary here, to keep them from wandering and seeing things they shouldn't.

The three women had clearly been told to await him, for they were standing in poses that were a little too contrived to be nat­ural. That was when he understood what his mother had meant.

There could not possibly have been three women more strik­ingly different. The first, tall, with pale gold hair and vivid blue eyes, had an angular face and a figure as slender and willowy as any Elven lady, and a far-away expression as if she lived en­tirely in a cloud of dreams. She had posed herself beside a giant vase of flowers, musing on a single enormous lily-blossom, her frilled and lacy gown echoing the pastel colors of the blooms. The