Aelmarkin and V'dann Triana Lord Falcion—who, despite being female, was Lord of the Falcion holdings in her own right, and thus (it recently had been ruled) was entitled to the title of Lord rather than Lady or er-Lord—were the only Elvenlords in the room with their own estates and property. Aelmarkin, however, was hardly a Great Lord—his property was a fraction of the size of any of those with real power; most of his wealth came from the sale of the exquisitely bred and trained concubines who were literally worth their weight in gems. That gave him a certain status, but no real power. As for Triana, her standing had plummeted after her involvement in the debacle of the Second Wizard War, and she was no longer a desirable ally to anyone on the Great Council. She generally kept to herself on her own estate. He suspected that she was biding her time, waiting to see which way the wind blew in the Young Lords' Uprising, before she tried to worm her way back into the good graces of the powerful.
As a party guest, however, she was still of value; an acid wit and a reputation for depravity gave her all the fascination of a captivating serpent, and people enjoyed seeing what she would
say or do next. Any time Aelmarkin invited her to one of his entertainments, he knew he would have full participation, and her own parties continued to be extremely popular among the younger sons, those who did not possess great power, and those who did not have a Council seat.
Aelmarkin was by no means as certain as the Great Lords that Triana would remain out of power for the foreseeable future. She was clever, resourceful, and learned from her mistakes. The Wizard Wars and the Rebellion were changing everything; it was always possible that Triana would prove to be a potent ally at some point. It was even possible that she would somehow claw her way to power entirely on her own. The extent of her boldness was demonstrated in her dress tonight; gowned in transparent silks like a concubine, she knew very well that however tempting she might be, there was no one here with sufficient power to dare touch her without her consent—and so she taunted them with her very appearance.
Besides, she had no scruples to speak of; he liked that in a woman—provided he didn't have to marry her.
"Have you heard anything more from the Council about your petition?" Triana called to him from across the room with a half smile. Her gladiator offered her a choice tidbit with a servile gesture; she allowed him to feed it to her, nibbling at it with white, sharp teeth. He was new to Aelmarkin, but that was hardly surprising; Triana went through male slaves at an astonishing rate.
He concealed a wince; Triana had a vested interest in the outcome of that petition, and it was one quite opposite to his. She would bring up the subject; he'd cherished the notion, when he'd scheduled this entertainment, that it might be a victory celebration. Since it wasn't, he had hoped no one would bring up the subject.
"They denied it," he said, trying to sound as if he didn't care about the outcome, even though his defeat ate at him.
Triana made a little pout of sympathy, and Tennith turned his head to gaze at Aelmarkin with astonishment. "No, really? I should have thought that your cousin had proved himself mentally unbalanced a hundred times over by now!"
About half of the guests looked puzzled; they didn't know who Aelmarkin's cousin was and he really didn't wish to enlighten them.
"Really!" chimed in another, sending away a server with a flick of an impatient hand, "Your cousin is quite a piece of work, Aelmarkin. Playing soldier with human slaves as if he was still an infant playing with toys! It's ridiculous! If he was going to have an obsession, it at least ought to be a dignified obsession!"
"Oh, I don't know," purred Triana, running her finger along the arm of her gladiator. "Some of us like to play with soldiers." The slave blushed from the top of his head to well past his waist.
"On what grounds did they deny you?" Tennith asked, and Aelmarkin wondered if he detected a certain malicious enjoyment in Tennith's tone. Tennith might not be a lord in his own right, but he outranked Aelmarkin, and he wasn't above flaunting that fact and embarrassing Aelmarkin at the same time.
But Tennith would find out for himself what the Council had said if he simply bothered to ask his father. Aelmarkin's best protection lay in pretending the decision meant very little to him. "They did a very tiresome thing; they had the production records from the estate for the last fifty years brought out, and nothing there shows that cousin Kyrtian is neglecting his estate or his duties. They decided that he isn't unbalanced, merely eccentric, and that eccentricity is hardly grounds for taking his inheritance and giving it to the next male heir."
"Next male heir?" Triana asked significantly, with a little frown. "Isn't his mother still alive? Wouldn't she be the appropriate heir even if he was disinherited on the grounds of insanity?" That was Triana's interest; anything that barred another female from inheriting could eventually be used against her.
"His mother is not my sister," Aelmarkin replied. "She's not the next heir of blood-descent, as you so clearly were for clan Falcion. If Kyrtian were removed, the estate would come to me, naturally and legally."
"She's probably the one running things, then," Tennith pointed out. "If she doesn't want to be sent back to live in her
father's household, she has to make it look as if your cousin is competent."
"That may be, but I've no hope of proving it," Aelmarkin growled, wishing that Lady Lydiell had resembled the child at his feet rather than the clever creature she was. He recalled his intended pose, and forced a laugh. "Well, I suppose the Council had to rule the way that they did. Lord Jaspireth told me rather tartly that if fitness to hold title and property was to be judged on the basis of unusual hobbies, half the Council would lose their seats."
"Half?" Tennith laughed. "More like three-quarters! Looked at in that light, it's obvious you are a victim of necessity."
Aelmarkin signaled to his wench to refill his goblet, and sipped at the vintage with deliberation. "Much as I would like to see the lands of my clan administered properly, I suspect they will come to me in time, anyway. Kyrtian shows no sign of marrying, which in itself ought to prove his unfitness, and it's entirely possible he'll manage to break his neck, or do something equally foolish to himself, as he careens around the countryside."
"Break his neck?" queried the second lady, looking puzzled, as did her escort. "I'm afraid I'm rather lost, Aelmarkin. I don't know anything about your cousin. Who is he? Is he doing something dangerous?"
That triggered laughter among some of the others, who were more familiar with Aelmarkin's cousin than she was. Triana took pity on her—probably because the lady's escort was neither clever nor outstandingly handsome—and explained.
"We've been discussing Kyrtian V'dyll Lord Prastaran," Triana said, giving Aelmarkin's cousin his full name and title. "Surely you've heard something about him?"
The lady shook her head. "Not really," she confessed, then realized that Triana was patronizing her, and put on a cool air as she tried to save the situation. "But I don't pay much attention to the provincials."
Aelmarkin snorted. "He's certainly provincial, I'll grant you that, Lady Brynnire. He never leaves the estate unless he absolutely has to. He could get a seat on the Great Council if he only worked at it, but he won't even try! Instead, he spends all
of his time collecting books and studying—of all the nonsensical subjects—military tactics!"
"Military tactics!" Triana erupted in peals of laughter. "Oh, Aelmarkin, even if he is serious and not seriously unbalanced, just who does he think he's going to use military tactics on? Everyone knows the humans and the halfbloods don't have real armies! They don't fight proper battles! And as for the Young Lords—"
She stopped, because it was entirely possible that this was a touchy subject for some of Aelmarkin's other guests. But Tennith, whose father was highly placed in the Great Council and thus was the highest-ranked Elvenlord present, finished her sentence for her.
"The Young Lords are a disorganized pack of rabble," he said loftily. "Once a solution is found that negates their ability to nullify magic, they'll dissolve and come crawling back to their fathers, begging forgiveness. In the meantime, it is impossible to use tactics against someone who doesn't know what the word means."
"Oh, that isn't the best of it," gloated Lord Pratherin. "He not only studies this nonsense, he practices it! Personally, I think he's never gotten over playing in the nursery with toy soldiers; he just does it now on a grander scale." When Brynnire still looked confused, he leaned over the couch in her direction and explained. "He makes up two opposing armies out of slaves, my dear, and personally leads one army into battle against the other, if you can believe it! Not to settle a grievance or for any other reasonable purpose, not even for the entertainment of watching them slaughter each other! No, he does this just to see how strategies work out with living subjects!"
As the others chortled, howled, or simply looked smug, according to their natures, Lady Brynnire looked startled, then shocked, then amused. "Aelmarkin! If I didn't know you, I'd be tempted to think you were making this up!"
"Sadly, my dear, I am not," Aelmarkin replied, and looked to Tennith, who nodded in confirmation.
"Really!" Brynnire giggled, a little nervously. "Well, eccentric is not what I would call him!"
"He takes after his father, dear lady," said Tennith smoothly. "Which might be said to demonstrate that, sadly, madness is inherited in his family. Surely you recall that poor demented fellow who vanished several years ago, out hunting some obscure relics of Evelon?"
"Yes!" Brynnire replied, brightening. "Ancestors! You don't mean to tell me that was Kyrtian's father?"
"The same," Aelmarkin told her, with a heavy sigh. "A sad case indeed. And it should have been obvious to the Great Council from that fiasco that the estate should not have been put in the hands of his son."
"I should say not." Lady Brynnire nodded her head, after exchanging a look with her escort. "At least, I would not have."
"Nor anyone else with any sense." Aelmarkin thought it more than time to change the subject, and signaled for the dancers.
The musicians, who had been playing soothing, quiet background music until this moment, abruptly changed mood and tempo, startling the guests with a thunder of percussion.
The lights dimmed, and a mist arose from the censers, a scented, cool mist that relaxed and yet stimulated the senses, even as it obscured the couches and their occupants. Only the space in the middle of the couches remained clear, lit from some invisible source.
The dancers ran in from all directions, dressed in the merest scraps of animal-hide, paint, beads, and feathers, and meant to represent wild humans. Not that any of Aelmarkin's guests had ever seen wild humans—nor had Aelmarkin himself, for that matter—but that would hardly matter. Most entertainments featured dancers mimicking the graceful and ethereal dances of their masters, or dancers changed to resemble animated flowers, birds, or flames. Aelmarkin wanted to startle his guests with something different.
The dance began with astonishing leaps as the performers hurled themselves across the floor with total abandon, their unbound hair streaming out behind them. Then, as drums pounded, the females hurled themselves at the males, who caught them in various positions, whirled them around, and