Lady Viridina regarded her with a penetrating gaze, as if looking for any hint that Rena found her comment amusing. “At any rate, you did impress the er-Lord, and as a consequence, you have impressed his father, which is much more important.”
Again she waited for a reply.
“Yes, my lady,” Rena managed to say. “Naturally, it would be more important to impress Lord Lyon. Poor Gildor—must be very difficult to deal with for his own lord father. He seems a—” she sought for a word to describe him that would have at least a hint of flattery amid the terrible truth that the young er-Lord was a fool “—an amiable young lord, and he certainly seems eager to please his lord father. As is only right, of course. But I would say that he has very little ambition.”
Or wit. Or intelligence.
Her mother nodded, and now she smiled, thinly. “Good. You understand the situation, then. V’denn Lyon Lord Kyndreth made your father an offer for your hand last night, on behalf of his son. Naturally, Lord Tylar has accepted on your behalf. He is very pleased; what is more. Lord Lyon seems to believe that this acceptance puts him in your lord father’s debt.”
She took the words as if they were blows to her face and body, and with nearly the same shock.
Offer? For me-from Gildor? Accepted?
Shock turned to horror, and Rena was paralyzed, quite unable to speak, move, or even think past the reality of her mother’s words. She had been sold away, all in an instant, without any warning—given to—to—
Gildor! A—an idiot who can’t even remember what he did a few hours ago! A dolt completely controlled by his father! A booby who—who has barely more sense than a child still in the nursery, whose only interest is hunting, and who hasn’t a single clever thought in his head! A fool who is cruel without even knowing that he has hurt someone!
She was too stunned even to tremble, and evidently her mother took her silence as a sign of agreement. She smiled, more with relief than with pleasure. “I am pleased to see that you are properly grateful to your lord father and to Lord Gildor. Your good sense does you credit, and is a testimony to your training.” She stood, and handed Rena another folded piece of paper, this one sealed with Lord Tylar’s formal seal. “The formalities must be observed, of course, and with someone of Lord Gildor’s lineage, that is more important than usual. Everything must be done properly, with the appropriate care, on our part. Go to your quarters, and have your slaves gown you for a formal dinner,” she ordered, as Rena stood in automatic response to her mother’s movement. “You will be leaving by means of the Portals to go straight to Lord Lyon and Lord Gildor yourself, bearing the acceptance, as is right and proper. Your escort will come to take you there in an hour.”
That was clearly a dismissal, and Rena walked blindly out of the study, out of her mother’s bower, and down the hallway to her own suite, still wrapped in a cocoon of stunned numbness.
* * *
The next few hours were a blur, lost in a haze of shock. She kept thinking that this was just another nightmare, that in a moment she would awaken in her own bed. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen! It was like some horrible twist on a romantic tale, wherein the High Lord falls in love with the daughter of one of his underlings and petitions to wed her. Why, oh why had Lord Gildor chosen her train to tread on? Why couldn’t he have blundered into someone else’s unwanted daughter?
She must have given her slaves orders, and they must have been sensible, for the next thing she knew, she was gowned, coiffed, and bejeweled, and standing next to her escort in front of the Portal. Someone must have seen to it that she had the most flattering of her formal gowns brought out—perhaps one of the slaves had taken pity on her. This time there were no cosmetics, her hair had been done in simple braids twined with strands of pearls and fastened at her neck in a complicated knot, and her dress was of heavy pink silk, with a high neck and long sleeves that swept the floor. A belt of pearls held it close in at her waist, and more pearls circled her throat. She faded into the walls of her chamber, but at least she didn’t look like a clown.
She thought she recalled Myre issuing orders and being obeyed, while she stood, sat, and turned in a state of mental blankness; she simply could not remember exiting her chamber, and now she stood on the threshold of the Portal. There was a sealed scroll-tube in her hand, an elaborately decorated, ivory-inlaid, gold scroll-tube. She didn’t remember picking it up; someone must have put it in her hand without her being aware of it. And as she raised her hand to touch her temple, dazedly, there was a new ring on her finger; this one of white gold, set with a beryl engraved with a winged stag.
Lord Lyon’s seal—?
It must be. How else would she be able to use the Portals to cross from here to Lord Lyon’s estate? It must have arrived with Lord Lyon’s messenger.
She had no time, to muster any other thoughts; her escort moved, carrying her with them, and she was through the Portal—
There was no intermediate pause in the Council Chamber this time; perhaps that was the reason for the signet ring, to enable her to go directly to her destination. She emerged into a reception room—
It was like no other room she had ever seen, though it was not one that had been altered by magic. This was a chamber with leather furnishings and hunting trophies everywhere. The blank-eyed heads of dead animals stared down at her from walls paneled in dark woods; whole dead animals and petrified birds had been made into lamp holders, table supports, or grisly display pieces. Hides with the heads intact carpeted the floor, and the whole of one wall was taken up with a mounted pair of stud alicorns locked in combat—one with a coat the black of ebony, and one white as a cloud. Both had mad, orange eyes that glittered with malice, and there was blood—or something made to resemble blood—on their twisting, spiraling single horns.
She shuddered, and looked away.
Anything that could possibly be hunted was here in some form and had been made into a trophy of some kind. Alicorn horns made a rack holding boar-spears, ivory and horn inlay covered every inch of the furniture that was not already upholstered with hides, some finished as smooth leather, and some with the hair or fur left on. Teeth snarled at her from all corners. Stuffed snakes twined around the bases of quivers mounted beside their bows. Racks for knives and swords had been fashioned of antlers.
Everywhere, glassy eyes stared at her, and she fancied that their stares held anger, bewilderment, or accusation. The place felt haunted by silent rage.
A silent human servant appeared, bowed deeply, and gestured for her to follow. She did so, glad only to be free of that room of accusing eyes.
Was this Lord Lyon’s way of impressing his visitors? Or did he truly take pleasure in having victims of his hunting expeditions displayed in a place where he could view them frequently?
Was she to become just another such trophy?
The servant led the way down a corridor paneled in more of the dark wood, lit by globes of mage-light caught in sconces made of yet more antlers, and carpeted with bloodred plush. She gave up trying to reckon how many deer and elk the sconces represented; Lord Lyon was one of the older High Lords, and he had many long years of hunting behind him. He might even be displaying only a fraction of his trophies here, given how long he had been alive.
What a horrid thought!
What was he trying to say, with this room of death? It was the first thing any visitor arriving by Portal would see, after all. Was he showing them, wordlessly, just how ruthless a foe he was? Did he mean for them to be impressed with his physical skill, or with the mental ability it took to stalk and kill so many creatures?
The corridor seemed to go on forever; the lights brightened as she reached them and dimmed behind her, so that she could not tell where the real end of it was. It said something for the dazed state of her mind that somewhere along it she lost her escort of guards, and she did not even notice that they were gone until the human servant stopped at a doorway and waited for her to join him. This was no ordinary door, of course; as soon as she stepped in front of it, she saw that it was an inlaid geometric mosaic of thousands of tiny bones, all of them vertebrae, fitted together with exacting skill to cover the entire face of the door with bone ivory. The design was probably supposed to signify something, but what that was, she had no notion.