She laughed. "The day I can't keep an unruly pack of puppies like that under my thumb, now that they've had a good scare, is the day you might as well start planning my funeral-games. You and your boys showed them that everything they'd won against their fathers was due to their incredible good luck, the Wizards' iron, and the Great Lords' incompetence. They're happy enough to be escaping the hounds, and I imagine they'll stay that way for some little while."
He had to smile at that. "I should have known better than to ask; I should be asking them if they think they'll be safe from you."
"Indeed you should." Moth smiled, and winked. "Two or three of those lads are rather toothsome, and still young enough to train properly. I'm not too old to remarry." She grinned as he laughed. "Now, get on with you. By now, poor Lydiell is probably wondering if the Portal's broken down."
He embraced her, then stepped across the threshold.
As soon as he recovered from the shock of crossing, which was always disorienting, he saw that his mother had already sorted out the new relationship between Gel and Rennati. And much to Gel's surprise and bemusement, she had taken it all in stride and with considerable aplomb—and from the sound of things, had begun making plans for them without waiting for Kyrtian.
Heh. I wonder if he expected Mother to be shocked or outraged that Rennati has managed to capture him? He should have known better than that—given all the matchmaking she's done all over the estate! He's just lucky she never seriously took it into her head to find a woman for him, or he 'd have been tied up long before this.
"Our people will expect a wedding-ceremony and a feast, of course," she was explaining to a bewildered Rennati. "Our Gel is a person of great importance here, and if we did anything less, people would feel cheated. We'll have to have all of the fighters and their families, of course—I wonder if we could have the whole thing in the open air? I can't think of any building on the estate large enough to fit everyone inside—"
"But—" Rennati said, feebly, looking alarmed.
"Oh, I know you've no idea what to do, child," Lydiell continued calmly. "But our people never had their traditions wrenched from them and buried past retrieval. They have their priests and their rituals exactly as they did before we came on the scene. Don't concern yourself with it; they know what to do, and if you can learn a clever dance, you can certainly learn a simple wedding ceremony. Now, this could fit in very nicely with the general homecoming; your wedding can be the start of a week of festivities and—"
"Mother, my love," Kyrtian interrupted her. "Don't forget, with all your planning, I have to be off with a select crew on
Lord Kyndreth's Wizard-hunt as soon as may be. This will have to look as if I consider it to be as urgent as he does."
"So Gel tells me," Lydiell said serenely. "All the more reason to have the wedding as soon as possible. I have been planning these homecoming celebrations for a fortnight, and you will be here for at least the first day and night of them! And if Kyndreth gets impatient, I will tell him that you needed the time to select exactly the right group of scouts and hunters."
Kyrtian bowed to the inevitable. "Yes, Mother," he said obediently, and beat a hasty retreat to his own suite, leaving Gel and Rennati to face his formidable mother and all her plans alone.
A coward's ploy, and he would surely hear all about it from Gel once the Sargeant got away. But in the meanwhile—
He can take care of himself. At least for a while. Once Rennati gets over being dazed, she 'II probably join forces with mother, the females against the poor, helpless male. I've never seen a woman that could resist an opportunity for a celebration and a new gown. Gel won't have a chance.
But oh, the more he thought about it, the more he hoped that his own time to wed wouldn't arrive anytime soon.
I think I'll run off and have Moth take care of everything. I'll hide in her library until the very last moment, so no one can swarm over me.
He pushed open the doors to his own rooms and sighed; it seemed an age since he'd been here, and the sight of his own quarters was very welcome.
But more welcome still was the bathroom, the ready tub, and the smiling servants waiting to help him.
He didn't stop for their help; he threw off his clothes and plunged into the hot water, relaxing completely in the penetrating heat, as he had not been able to do since he left. Much as he loved and trusted Lady Moth, she had all those Young Lords still lurking on her premises, and Lady Triana's unexpected arrival only proved that even the formidable Lady Morthena could be surprised by unexpected visitors. Furthermore, she admitted later that she had no notion how many keys to her Portal her late husband had handed about. It could be many, it could
be few, but the fact was they probably existed. And if anyone was likely to ferret those keys out, it would be Kyndreth, Tri-ana, or Aelmarkin. As a result, he had not really been able to relax, even while on her estate.
And, of course, while on campaign he'd had no such luxuries as this. Just the thought of all the times he'd gone to bed aching and bruised and bathless made this all the more pleasurable.
It might be a while before I get to enjoy it again. Although his hunt for the non-existent Wizards was by its very nature a wild-goose chase, he would have to conduct it as if it was serious. The bare essentials for camping, no more than six men, and they would have to keep themselves fed off the land as much as possible. There would be no hot, soaking baths out there in the forests.
He was, however, too energetic by nature to relax for too long in a hot bath when he wasn't bone-tired and wasn't currently aching and bruised. Soon enough he was out and dressed, and went looking for his father's notes. They were still where he had left them, in the library. A quick glance through them told him everything he needed to know.
He sent his bodyservant Lynder to find Gel. Just about now, Gel should be frantic for a way to escape the two females who were planning a wedding around him, will-he, nill-he.
Sure enough, within moments Lynder and Gel were back, Lynder's eyes dancing with merriment, Gel looking distinctly harried. "Before everyone gets wrapped up in this festival business, I want you to help me pick out six of our trackers for this pseudo Wizard-hunt," he told Gel. "I want men who didn't go out as fighters, but who can still be spared. It's getting close to the first hay-harvest, and I don't want to leave Mother short-handed even by a trifle."
"I can tell you who without even thinking about it," Gel replied immediately. "Kar, Tem, Shalvan, Resso, Halean and Noet. They're all the junior foresters; they don't help with the harvest and their da's can live without 'em for a bit. Why so many? You plan on actually doing anything in there?"
"It's dangerous; it isn't going to be a pleasure trip," Kyrtian warned. "Even if the new Wizards are a fabrication, there are
still a lot of deadly creatures in that area. And you aren't going to be along."
Gel's face fell, but he also looked resigned. "I was afraid you were going to decide that," he grumbled. "Damn it all, Kyrtian—"
"Gel, you're a fighter, a tactician; you're neither a hunter nor a forester," Kyrtian pointed out. "You'd be of less use to me than one of those boys. You'll be of more user here to me—and Mother—on the bare chance that Aelmarkin tries something while I'm gone. Mother is many things—but not a soldier."
Gel's mouth tightened. "You're not thinking he'd convince Kyndreth to put this place under siege?"
"I'm not thinking anything," he lied with a straight face—because that was precisely what he was thinking. He didn't trust Aelmarkin—and he didn't trust Kyndreth, either. Maybe he was still useful to the Great Lord—but maybe he wasn't, anymore. "Kyndreth still needs me as long as he thinks there's a tribe of Wizards hiding right on our borders. I'm more worried about what Aelmarkin might do—or try. But between you and Mother, with Moth to feed you gossip, you'll see through anything he tries before he's done more than make a tentative probe." He clapped Gel on the shoulder. "I am not trying to put you out to stud like my favorite warhorse, although I suggest you make that charming little dancer into a very happy wife! I am allocating my resources where they'll do the most good. I need you and Mother here, watching for trouble, while I go into the forest and wait for the Elvenbane to contact me again— which she will, since the forest is the most logical place for that." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "There's one other thing—before we had to leave Moth's, I was reading some personal journals, and something I ran into reminded me of some of Father's notes that he left behind. It's possible we've been looking for the Great Portal in the wrong place. I think it's underground, and the area around Cheynar's estate has a lot in common with the forest our ancestors fled through when they first arrived."
Gel knew exactly what he was hinting. "Those hills are riddled with caves!" he exclaimed. "Come to think of it, if your
ancestors found that their Portal dropped 'em into a cave, they wouldn't have been displeased about that, I wouldn't think; coming into a strange world in a protected spot."
"It's one possible place to look," Kyrtian agreed. He didn't tell Gel the one thing that concerned him deeply—the Ancestors had fled the vicinity of the Great Portal in terror, but why? That was the very last thing he wanted Gel thinking about when he was gone. "That's why I want your hunters and trackers. As long as I have to pretend I'm hunting for Wizards living in caves, I have every excuse to check every cave we come across."
"Then you don't want hunters and trackers—or, at least, not all hunters and trackers," Gel said decisively. "You'll need men that can keep all of you fed, but you'll also need men who're used to clambering around underground. Instead of Kar and Tem, I want you to take Kar's brother Hobie, and your laddy Lynder, there."
"Lynder?" Kyrtian turned to his bodyservant in surprise. "Lynder? Why Lynder?"
"Because Lynder and Hobie have been trying to kill themselves climbing down holes in the ground on their spare time ever since they were in their teens," Gel replied, wryly, as Lynder flushed a brilliant scarlet. "If you're going to be doing the same, I suggest you take people who've had the experience of nearly drowning when a cloudburst outside flooded the cave they were in."
"We got out ahead of the flood!" Lynder protested, turning redder. "We heard it coming!"
"And it would be useful if you had a couple of lads who'd been stuck in a passage they realized a bit too late was too small for them." Gel was clearly enjoying himself.
"It wasn't too small originally," Lynder muttered. "The rock shifted."
"I can see Lynder has plenty of experience," Kyrtian interrupted, trying not to laugh, although he also felt very sorry for the poor young man. "Haven't you told me, time and time again, that the best teacher is experience?"
"Hobie and I have been cave-exploring for three years now