Elvenborn

Lady Triana supervised the preparation of her reception chamber with the same care a good general would have given to the preparation of battle-plans. Things were begin­ning to move, at last, although not entirely in the direction she had wanted. Aelmarkin was on his way to her manor—she knew this, of course, because she had not given him an access-key to her Portal, and as a consequence he had to make the last leg of his journey the hard way, overland from the manor where Aelmarkin had a friend willing to allow him the use of his Por­tal. He probably didn't even know that she had a Portal. There weren't many who she trusted with keys to it, so it wasn't com­mon knowledge.

She'd had plenty of time to prepare for him by now, and he knew that. Already she had an advantage over him.

She had been expecting this visit for some time; in fact, she was surprised that he hadn't turned up before this. Aelmarkin's cousin Lord Kyrtian, rather than disgracing himself, was distin­guishing himself on the battlefield against the rebellious Young Lords. After that last rout of the Young Lords, his star was par­ticularly high with the Council. Aelmarkin must be furious.

She only wished that she had nearly as much of an advantage over Aelmarkin as she was going to pretend she had. Her little spy in the household, kept as she was in the harem and with no access to young Kyrtian when he was away on his martial busi­ness, had proved of little use. The domestic details that the slave had been sending were only of interest in that they showed how thoroughly Kyrtian's mother held the reins of the manor. A pity, that. It appeared that Triana was going to have to do most of the work of subverting Lord Kyrtian herself.

But it was, of course, not to her advantage to allow Ael-

markin to know any of this, and she didn't intend to. She would probably let him know that she had the spy; that would be use­ful without giving away too much.

When Aelmarkin arrived, what she did intend was that Ael-markin would see a side of her that he would never have ex­pected. All he had ever seen was the temptress, and that was all he was ready for. He probably expected that she would try to use her wiles on him.

Men were so predictable.

She had two different reception chambers, for two very dif­ferent purposes; this one also served as the office from which she ran her own little estate, and as such, it was both totally 'like' her and completely unlike any of the faces she presented to the outside world. It was not spare and ascetic by any means; the desk behind which she sat was a work of art, fitted together from massive pieces of hand-carved, petrified wood polished to a mirror- gleam, and fitted around her so that she could keep every bit of work near at hand without having to reach for it. The charcoal-colored, leather-upholstered chair that cradled her was as comfortable as any sybaritic couch, and glided on rails into and out of the niche within the curve of the desk. There was a matching couch across from the desk; it matched superficially, that is, but it had been made so that, although it was extremely comfortable, it was treacherous. Be the occu­pant ever so tall, whoever sat there would find that his head was lower than hers, and getting up created some awkward mo­ments. For the rest, the chamber exuded a restrained opulence; soft, dark grey carpet with subtle grey-on-grey pattern, silver-grey satin draperies covering the walls, lighter in color than the carpet but with the same pattern. The only color in the room lay in the stone of the desk, which drew the eye like a magnet, away from Triana. Which was the point; it was difficult for a beautiful elven lady to appear intimidating, but the desk man­aged to overwhelm simply by being.

Aelmarkin had reached the gates of her estate and been ad­mitted not long ago. He would arrive at any moment, and she was perfectly ready for him.

Meanwhile she busied herself with the accounts. With the

fall in her fortunes, her little estate had to be self-supporting, for there were no more gifts—well, call them what they were, bribes—forthcoming from those who wished to attach them­selves to a rising star. She supposed she could have improved her fortunes by marrying, but that was hardly a solution that was to her taste. There wasn't anyone free among the Old Lords who wasn't a close match for her wits and who wouldn't hedge her around with so many constraints that it would take all of her energy just to continue to enjoy herself as she had. And as for the Young Lords still loyal to their sires—

—well, she was not minded to wet-nurse a callow youth, who had no inclination to work, no interests but his own amusement, and no ambitions except to indulge in sex and games. She'd be better off adopting such a young fool than wedding him; at least then she could treat the fellow like the child he was.

So, following her fall from grace, she had applied herself to the business of raising and training very special slaves, exqui­site creatures much in demand for their beauty and skills. There was always a waiting-list for her pretty boys and decorative men—she was an expert, after all, in the things that made males both ornamental and useful. There were plenty of Elvenlords— Aelmarkin for one—who bred and trained lovely female slaves for the luxury trade, but Triana was the only supplier of males for the same purpose. Some were bought by Elvenlords, but not nearly as many as were bought by the ladies—not that the lords these ladies answered to were ever made aware of the existence of these special slaves. Ladies might well be hedged about by rule and custom and kept close in the harem—but nothing pre­vented the visits of another Lady.

Triana, say, with a small entourage of her special slaves.

Now, once Triana and her slaves were within the walls of an estate, it was child's play for the lady she visited to purchase one or more; unless she was totally hedged about, she had sim­ply to order that the requisite price be sent to Triana's steward by her own household steward, who would not gainsay her. The slaves then vanished into the household, assigned to the lady's personal service, never to be seen—oh, most certainly never!—

by the master of the house. It was easy enough to do, for even on estates that bred their own slaves there were always more being purchased—a special skill might be needed, or the slaves themselves disobliged by presenting one with too many of one sex and not enough of the other. The purchase of a great many of these male slaves that Triana so carefully trained was con­cealed under the bland heading 'household expenses.'

One of Triana's own slaves, sleek in her livery of dark silver and midnight, came to the door of the chamber, and Triana looked up and nodded acknowledgment of his silent signal. A moment later, a second arrived, Aelmarkin in tow.

'V'kel Aelmarkin el-Lord Tornal, my Lady,' he intoned, as Aelmarkin sauntered past him into the office. Both slaves van­ished as soon as Triana nodded to them.