Elvenborn

Automatically Rennati leapt obediently to her feet, turning her astonished eyes to the Lady's face as her heart skipped beats and her chest tightened along with her throat. For a mo­ment, she thought she would faint.

Lady Lydiell frowned, but not in such a way as—say—Lady

Triana had frowned. This frown was just annoyance, not some­thing that would freeze the blood. It was an impersonal frown—there was no real anger in it. Though Rennati's skin felt cold and clammy, her heart slowed, just a little, and the ten­sion in her chest eased.

''Sit down,' Lady Lydiell said shortly, and Rennati obeyed, her eyes fixed on the Lady's face. 'And tell me about this ring. Who gave it to you? Why? And what have you been telling him?'

'Her,' Rennati corrected automatically, and clapped her hand to her mouth in renewed alarm. But when no slap, sting of the collar, or indeed, any other correction came, she took her courage in both hands, and began her tale.

There was no reason to lie; if Lady Lydiell cared to, she could have it all out of her in a moment, either under the influ­ence of drugs or by application of pain through the collar. And at this point there was no chance that Lady Triana would keep her side of the bargain, which had specified that Rennati remain undetected. So Rennati told everything, from the moment that Lady Triana picked her out of a slave-sale to the last thing that she had reported. As she spoke, Lady Lydiell's frown softened, until when at last Rennati fell silent, the elven lady's expression was no worse than thoughtful and slightly disapproving.

As she spoke, and Lydiell's expression eased, so, too, did the feeling of panic and fear, the awful sick feeling in her stomach. As she finished her last words, Lydiell nodded.

'It could have been worse,' she said when Rennati fell silent. 'You haven't given that creature much that's going to be of any use to her, and forewarned is forearmed as they say.' She watched Rennati for a few moments, then appeared to make up her mind about something. 'Stand up, child,' she said. 'I want you to come with me.'

The fear returned, redoubled, and her heart raced again, her breath coming quickly as she tried to get air past the terrible tightness of her throat and chest. Now it comes, Rennati thought, heart sinking with dread. But, of course, she couldn't disobey. She followed Lady Lydiell down the stairs, past Gi-anna and Kara—

And out past the barrier at the door that kept unauthorized

slaves from getting into the harem—and the concubines from leaving it. There was a faint tingle on her skin as she passed through the shimmering curtain of magic power, and she shiv­ered. Now she was outside, and away from the scant protection of the presence of the other two. What was Lady Lydiell going to do with her? Hand her over to the gladiators?

'You're intelligent, and I don't think you're a bad child at heart,' Lydiell said, as if to herself, then looked over her shoul­der at Rennati, who shrank inside herself when those penetrat­ing green eyes met hers. 'I'm usually considered a good judge of character, by the way.'

'Yes, my lady,' Rennati whispered, since it seemed that Lady Lydiell was waiting for an answer as they walked down a marble-faced hallway.

'I'm going to take a chance with you,' Lydiell continued, still holding her with that,sharp gaze. 'I'm going to do some­thing that has never been done with a human from outside our own circle, born and raised among us. I'm going to show you exactly what you've jeopardized with your actions.'

And for the next several hours, Rennati found herself hauled all over Lord Kyrtian's estate, seeing things that left her gaping, too overwhelmed to speak. This—this place was nothing like anywhere she had ever been before!

At first, it only seemed as if this was just an ordinary estate, although the Master and Mistress of it were unusually kind to their slaves and treated them extraordinarily well. First, the Lady took her to every nook and cranny of the Great House— not only through the rooms that she and her son and the other Elvenlords of the household used, but into the kitchen, the still-room, the laundry, the sewing and weaving room. Everywhere the Lady was greeted with respect, though not servility; more importantly, she didn't expect or seem to demand servility. In every other household Rennati had been in, slaves were ex­pected never to speak unless directly addressed, never to raise their eyes to the mistress's face unless given permission, and never, ever, to do as these slaves did, and actually approach the mistress with a report or a query. But Rennati quickly began to

realize that Lady Lydiell not only was incredibly approachable, she was also greeted with actual affection by her slaves.

Affection? From slaves? How was that possible?

'What do you think of our home so far?' Lydiell asked, as they moved outside and headed for a long, low building. This was a question that would have been appropriate if asked of an equal or one only slightly inferior, but not of a concubine. Con­cubines were not supposed to have opinions. They were barely supposed to think.

The question surprised her into honesty, not the least because the slaves in the kitchen had actually called cheerful and wel­coming greetings when the Lady had first entered, leaving Ren-nati dumbfounded. 'I don't understand,' she said. 'They like you! How can slaves like you?'

She hadn't really expected a reply, unless it came as a re­proof. But what Lady Lydiell said in response to the impulsive exclamation shocked her to the core and left her speechless.

'They like me because they are not slaves,' Lydiell said. 'Neither they, nor their ancestors, were ever slaves; here, in this one manor, no Elvenlord has ever enslaved a human.'

What? Rennati felt her heart actually stop for a moment.

'They are in my employ,' Lady Lydiell continued. 'They are my helpers, and we respect each other. Kyrtian and I protect them from the outside world, as his father did for their ances­tors, and his grandfather for theirs, and for that protection, they and their families serve us,' the Lady said quietly. 'We have never had slaves here, and never shall, if we are left alone by the Lady Trianas of the world.'

It was such an astonishing statement that it had to be a lie. It was simply not possible that there was a family of the Elven-lords that hadn't enslaved humans!

And yet—how could it be a lie? Why should the Lady make up such an astonishing story? What purpose would it serve? And how could she have gotten all of her slaves to act in such a natural way, unless it was true and not a lie?

As Rennati continued to follow Lady Lydiell out into the fields, to the cottages of the farm-laborers, to the barracks of

the fighters, she had been protected by a core of utter disbelief, but the more she saw, the more that core eroded. If the Lady had only shown her the household servants, she would not have trusted what she saw, but here were people who should never have set eyes on the lady, who, if they ever by some chance had seen her should never recognize the plainly-dressed Lady for the authority that she was. But time after time, the Lady was met with welcome and greeting, with the kind of common talk that might be shared with a trusted human overseer, but never with an Elvenlord, and she herself asked questions about the farming, training, or the slaves themselves and their families (families? Impossible!) that showed she was intimately familiar with the minutiae of their lives.

Even so, Rennati clung to her stubborn refusal to believe in this miracle of Elven kindness, right up until the two of them approached a set of small buildings constructed around a gar­den. Rennati could not imagine what they could be, but to her incredulous ears came the sound of high, shrill voices—the voices of children—

As Lady Lydiell came into view of the garden, the children playing there caught sight of her, and ran toward