The servant opened the door smoothly and bowed for her to enter. She stepped hesitantly through, into the half-dark beyond.
Once again, she found herself at the edge of a sylvan glade beneath a full moon. There were no tame animals here, though, and the moon and stars overhead were all too clearly magelights. Most of this was illusion, and it was not as per feet an illusion as the fete had boasted. In fact, given Lord Lyon's power and prestige, it was probably not as perfect an illusion as he
could
create, if he cared to. An unseen musician played quietly on a dulcimer, and the branches of the trees moved to a breeze that did not stir even a hair of Rena's coiffure.
The door closed behind her.
In the center of the glade was a table, set for three. Mage-light caught in a candelabra of antlers centered on the table, though it did not appear that the occupants had been served yet. There were two people there already; the dim light made it impossible for her to identify either of them, but she assumed they were Gildor and his father.
She stepped forward a few paces and the light at the table brightened. The two occupants of the table turned toward her—and she saw that one of them was really a female.
A
human
female.
Sharing the board at what was supposed to be
her
intimate betrothal dinner with her Lord-to-be.
She froze where she stood, unable to go on, or to turn and leave.
The light was bright enough now to show humiliating details. The human was very beautiful, exquisitely and expensively gowned and jeweled in crimson satin the color of blood, with rubies and gold circling her throat, and her wrists—and from her posture and Gildor's, obviously his favorite concubine.
A concubine? At what was
supposed
to be her betrothal dinner?
For a moment, she wondered wildly if her mother had gotten the time of the invitation wrong, or if she had somehow misheard her orders.
But—no, that was not possible. The escort had been waiting for her, the acceptance ready for her to take with her, the ring that allowed her to come here readied for her hand. There was no mistake here.
Far from suffering from the paralysis and fear that had held her until this moment, her mind suddenly leapt free of its bonds of dazed indecision. She saw everything with heightened clarity, and her thoughts raced as if she had been playing the games of intrigue for decades. Perhaps it was only that for the first time in this awful day, she had confronted something she could act upon, rather than being in a position in which she had no control whatsoever.
This was no accident, nor had Gildor thought of this arrangement on his own. He could not simply have "invited" his concubine; his father would never have permitted such a thing, and the servants would have reported such a social gaffe immediately, long before Sheyrena arrived. Lord Lyon had orchestrated everything so thoroughly thus far that this insult to her dignity and pride could only be due to some plan of his—or of him and Lord Tylar combined. It could not be designed as an affront as such—Lord Lyon would not go through all that he had just to insult a nonentity like her, and if he wished to insult Lord Tylar, he would do so directly and not through her. He was the more powerful of the two, and it would be a social gaffe on
his
part to insult her House through a female.
It's a test. And Father must have had a hand in it. Only he would think of using a human concubine as the tool and weapon.
She was being presented with a situation designed to test precisely how biddable, how obedient to her Lord's wishes, she would be in the future. Gildor was clearly not capable of making any kind of decent decision; to present him with a bride who had a mind of her own and a will of her own was to concoct a recipe for disaster. A willful wife could show him to be the fool that he truly was, and with no difficulty at all. Almost as bad, a willful wife might learn to manipulate him.
If I make a fuss, if I take insult with this and walk out, what would that mean?
Probably that she was going to be too much for Gildor to cope with.
She was tempted to do just that—
But if I do—
If anything would tempt Lord Tylar into having her Changed, it would be just such a reaction. She
had
her orders, after all; she was not supposed to have any pride that could suffer insult. If she dared to think for herself, she was a danger to her father's ambitions as well as to Gildor. And with Lord Lyon's help and influence backing him, her father would be able, monetarily and politically, to afford having her Changed so that she would no longer cause problems for her betrothed. Lord Lyon clearly needed, with some desperation, a bride who would not challenge Gildor or attempt to usurp his own power through Gildor. And if he could find a maiden whose father countenanced sending her away for the Change, wouldn't he seize such a chance with both hands? A Changed bride would be a bride who also would be unable to manipulate Gildor and use him against his father—and one who would make Gildor completely happy. A perfect bride, in other words, insofar as Lord Lyon's purposes went.
On the other hand, she could prove at this very moment that she was as pliant and meek as her father and Lord Lyon demanded.
If I just walk right up there as if there were nothing at all out of the ordinary with my being asked to share my betrothal feast with my betrothed's favorite lover, I'll be just as good as a Changed bride
. If she acted as if she simply didn't notice the insult, as if this was a cheerful little dinner party, it would mean that she was "safe"; she would obey her Lord in the future, and not embarrass him in public. She
might
be clever enough to try to manipulate Gildor—but Lord Lyon was probably operating under the assumption that if she had been kind to him without knowing who he was, she was doubtlessly too stupid to be
that
clever.
Her cold had given way to the heat of humiliation as she stood there, however. Not even Lady Viridina had ever been forced into a position like this!
If I go
—
if I walk out of here and go straight home again
—
She would be forced to wed Gildor anyway.
But there won't be enough left of the real me to care
.
For one short moment, that almost seemed preferable to her current situation.
Then she shook herself mentally. This was only a betrothal. Hundreds of things could happen between now and the actual marriage. Gildor might die; if he spent most of his time in hunting, he stood a reasonable chance of discovering that he was not as good a hunter as he thought. Her father might die, which would leave Lorryn head of the household, and
he
would never force her to wed this lout.
She
might die. She and Lorryn together might find some way of getting Lord Tylar to break the betrothal. She might find a way to make Gildor disenchanted with her. Lord Lyon might make some disastrous move that would reduce his power, and make Gildor a less-than-desirable husband for her, in regard to Lord Tylar's ambitions.
At the very worst, she would be wed to the dolt, and if the marriage proved childless, Lorryn might be able to free her from it sometime in the future. Or Gildor could die.
And meanwhile, Lord Tylar looked upon her with grim favor. She might win a few freedoms out of this.
It was hard, hard, but she forced her feet to move forward, one slow step at a time. She forced a fatuous, false smile onto her lips. Gildor rose as she approached; the concubine did not. This did not escape Rena, and her cheeks burned with further humiliation.
"Sheyrena!" Gildor said, with childish enthusiasm. "Welcome! Please, come join us—"
The empty chair moved back of its own accord for her, and she took her place in it, moving stiffly. The concubine, a stunning raven-haired beauty with the healthiest set of pectoral endowments that Rena had ever seen in her life, smiled maliciously at her, and did not even incline her head in a token bow.
She
knew who the real power was here. She was the favorite; Sheyrena was the convenience.
"This is Jaene, the chief of my household; Jaene, this is Sheyrena." He grinned foolishly at them both; without a doubt, he was completely unaware that there was anything wrong with the situation. "I hope you'll come to be very good friends. You'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on."
Jaene smiled, the same cruel smile Rena had seen on her father's face as he assigned yet another of his castoffs to Lady Viridina's household. "I'm sure," she purred. "I'm sure we will."
Oh, surely. The chief of his household. As if the household of an er-Lord ever
could
consist of more than his harem, his personal servants, and his hunting-master! Did his father tell him to tell me that? Probably. And if I pretend to believe it, I'll prove that I'm as stupid as he is
.
Sheyrena could not bring herself to say anything, nor could she bring herself to actually hand the sealed scroll-tube to Gildor. Cheeks hot, she simply placed it on the table between them, avoiding Jaene's eyes altogether.
Another invisible servant made it vanish before she could snatch it back.
Gildor settled back into his chair, a smug expression of blissfully ignorant happiness suffusing his features, making him look particularly handsome if one didn't gaze too closely at the vacant eyes. "We'll have to do this often," he said to no one in particular. "Just one happy little family!"
Jaene's smile widened just a little. "Whatever you wish, my lord," she replied, with mock submission, ignoring Sheyrena altogether.
Sheyrena nearly choked.
Fortunately, a plate settled in front of her, saving her from having to look anywhere else. That was just as well; she found it hard enough just to look at the plate.
She did not say more than two words during the entire painful meal—nor did she eat more than a single bite before her throat closed in rebellion. Jaene continued to smile poisonously and eat slowly, deliberately making each bite a display of sensuality. Gildor inhaled vast amounts of food, oblivious to the tension at the table. Invisible servants came and went with multiple courses, all of which were probably succulent; they certainly smelled inviting, and they looked beautiful. They might just as well have been straw for all that Rena could taste of them. She tried a bite or two, but gave up when her throat refused to unclench enough to allow her to swallow, and thereafter simply pushed the foot around on her plate with her fork until the servant came to take it away.
She did drink the wine, feverishly, and a servant kept her glasses full, a different wine for every course. She probably drank too much of it, for it made her a bit dizzy, but it did not impair her enough to make her lose control of her tongue. She only wanted it as a kind of anesthetic, to keep the pain of the moment at bay.
She said nothing, kept her eyes on her plate, and endured.
The invisible musician played on, supplemented by a harpist. The trees swayed in the breeze that was not there. The unseen servants whisked full plates from under her nose, replacing them with more full plates. Jaene continued to smile, looking more and more catlike with every passing moment as she turned her posture into a lazy, seductive lounge. She had allowed the neckline of her gown to slip, and Gildor was staring at her cleavage with a rapt attention that nearly matched that which he had given the food.
She
might just as well not have been there by the time the unendurable meal was half-over.
Only the wine gave her the strength to sit there and endure—the wine, and the certainty that, no matter what she did, she (or her body, at any rate)
would
be wedding Gildor if her father had any say in the matter. She had only the choice that would permit her to keep her mind intact; the choice that proved she was obedient. Her father wanted this wedding; she might get a little of what she longed for only if she earned it with her silence.
And of course, except for Lord Lyon, her father had the only say in the matter.
Finally, as she gulped yet another glass of wine and her feeling of dizziness increased, the dessert course arrived. The invisible servant whisked away the last plate, and replaced it with a tiny white sugar alicorn, romantically idealized, a ring balanced delicately on the end of its single horn. The ring was made of heavy white gold, and was engraved with winged stags and moonbirds. She knew what it was: the betrothal ring, of course. If she accepted it and put it on, it sealed her fate.
She hesitated for just a moment, holding back her fate for an illusory heartbeat. As long as this thing was not on her finger, she could pretend that she was free.
But I'm not. I never was. 1 never will be.
Numb and dizzy, she took the ring and fumbled it onto her finger.
Then, with her fork, she slowly and deliberately crushed the alicorn to tiny, sugary crumbs.
She had thought that her ordeal was over, but Gildor showed no signs of rising, and neither did Jaene. In fact, Gildor showed no signs of noticing that she had even
accepted
his ring. She was forced to sit there, crushing the dessert into smaller and smaller bits, while Gildor stared at his concubine's bosom and ignored her.
She
could not leave until Gildor produced a written and signed betrothal contract for her to deliver to her father, and he didn't seem to be prepared to do that while Jaene sat there and fluttered her eyelashes at him.
Finally, with the alicorn reduced to powder, and her temper smoldering under the influence of the wine, she decided she'd had enough. Let Gildor explain why he hadn't presented her with the contract.
She
had gone out of her way to observe the formalities; she had obeyed far more than the mere letter of her orders.
She stood up abruptly, and the chair she had been sitting in fell over as she shoved it violently back. Gildor and Jaene suddenly turned to stare at her as if they had only just noticed that she was there.
"It is very late," she said, rather thickly, as the wine made speech a bit difficult. "I beg your pardon, my lord, but I am not often abroad from my father's house and am unused to such late hours. I must go."