As if I had nothing to worry about in the howling wilderness except care for my nails! She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
Eventually they finished with her, dressed her in a gown of a soft rose color, and sent her on her way to her father’s study. They had offered her a drink that she suspected was meant to tranquilize her; she accepted it, and surreptitiously poured it into a vase after pretending to drink from it. Their expressions of satisfaction confirmed her suspicion, and she took care to act relaxed and just a bit giddy when she made her way between two much-chastised guards to the study.
But as the door opened, she discovered that her father was not alone, and she was very glad that she did not have the jewelry on her person. She did not know these lords by name, but their faces told her all that she needed to know about them. Such arrogance only came with the greatest of power.
She made a deep, though unsteady, curtsy, and did not rise until her father gave her leave, in a voice that betrayed his pleasure at her action.
“These are two High Lords from the Council, Sheyrena,” he said, speaking slowly, as if she were a child, or feebleminded. Or both! ‘Tell us all what happened to you at the hands of the monster that stole you away.”
One of the High Lords brought her a chair, which she sank into gratefully; in a trembling and hesitant voice, she told her story, beginning with Lorryn supposedly coming to her room with her maid to take her on a sunrise picnic, and ending with her “escape” from the terrible halfblood, stealing his boots so that he could not pursue her, and retracing the path she had memorized even in her terror.
“He was going to sell me to the wizards, Father,” she cried, her voice shaking, not with suppressed tears as they supposed, but with suppressed laughter. “He told me that he was going to sell me to the wizards, to feed to their dragons! He told me that dragons would only eat maidens, and—”
She couldn’t stand it anymore; she hid her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook as she laughed silently. The three lords conversed among themselves as she strove to get herself under control again.
Finally she raised her head from her hands, and, sniffing bravely, she faced them again.
“It all fits,” she heard one of them say in an undertone; her father and the other one nodded.
“You have been a good and a brave child, Sheyrena,” said the one who had spoken, in a voice as unctuous as massage-oil and as sweet as treacle. “You are a credit to your father and to the name of your House.”
She bowed her head submissively, and the unctuous one turned back to Lord Tylar. “By your leave, my lord, we will return to the Council with these tidings.”
He nodded; they turned and left through the Portal door.
As soon as they were gone, he chuckled. Sheyrena raised her eyes, feigning shyness.
“You have done very well, Sheyrena,” he said, and studied her. He blinked once or twice, as if in surprise. “I do believe that your ordeal has actually improved your looks, girl!” he exclaimed, in a voice full of astonishment. “By the Ancestors, you actually are attractive^”
“Thank you, Father,” she replied meekly; she flushed with anger, but dropped her eyes so that he would assume that it was a blush of embarrassment.
“This—this all puts a new complexion on things,” he muttered, and drummed his fingers on his desk. “You are of full elven blood, and now my only heir—your value as a marriage-piece is a great deal higher than when you were stolen. Hmm.”
He got up from his desk, came around to her side, and put a finger under her chin, tilting it up so that he could study her face. “Hmm,” he repeated, as she veiled her eyes with her lashes to hide her anger. “Add to that the fact that you’re no longer a little cream-faced loon, but a handsome little thing—your value is even greater.”
He allowed her to drop her head again, and stood beside her chair. She didn’t reply, but he didn’t seem to expect her to.
“You may go,” he finally said, abruptly.
She took him at his word, rose unsteadily, curtsied, and fled. And once she was back in the safety of her own chamber, she took the packets of jewelry from their hiding places, and quickly “concealed” them in the best of all hiding places, and the one place no man would ever look—
—in the midst of all the other jewelry in her valuables chest.
Then, and only then, did she strip off her gown without calling for her maids, slip into her bed in her petticoat, and fall into an exhausted sleep.
Her father woke her—or rather, her maids did, fluttering about, agitated beyond measure that he was waiting outside and she was in no state to receive him! In something of a fog, she let them gown her again, and brush out her hair; the very instant she was “decent,” he swept in with all the high drama of a state entrance.
“Have your maids pack up your things, Sheyrena,” he said to her. “You are moving to the bower.”
She stared at him stupidly; he smiled, the smile of someone who is doing what he wants and thinks he is conferring a tremendous favor.
“You are my only right-born child, Sheyrena,” he said, ponderously, and he held out a hand. She put her own in his, not really knowing what he wanted, and he set a ring of keys into it—the same ring of keys she had seen her mother wearing, for as long as she could remember.
“You are the lady of the House,” he told her. “You now have charge of the bower and the household.” At her look of naked shock and dismay, he laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, child—it’s only an honor and a title. The slaves really see to it all. You only need to see to it that the slaves know to come to you for their orders, and I will tell you what to tell them.”
“Yes, Father,” she faltered.
His smile broadened. “You are far too valuable to waste on the likes of Lord Gildor,” he said, sounding very pleased with himself. “I have sent my regrets to Lord Gildor, telling him that you are too precious to me now, and that I cannot bear to be without your comfort and company. I have dissolved the betrothal.”
“You have?” She stared at him; she would not have believed that he would go that far!
He mistook her astonishment for dismay. “Oh, don’t be disappointed, child! You are worth ten Gildors now! No, now, listen to me closely.”
She shut her mouth, and kept her face carefully schooled into the appearance of attentiveness.
“I am going to find you a marriage-alliance that will put our House in the ranks of the High Lords,” he told her gleefully. “You have a job to do, a very important one. You must not allow this present attractiveness to fade, and that is an order! I want you to rise every morning, put yourself right into the hands of your maids, make yourself presentable, and keep yourself that way! None of these afternoon naps, when you can’t be viewed! No disappearing for long rides! Don’t go hiding in the garden as if you were a child! Is that understood?”
“Yes, Father,” she replied, flushing again with anger. And, predictably, he interpreted the anger as embarrassment.
“Now, Sheyrena, don’t be upset,” he said, in what he probably thought was a coaxing tone. “I’m not angry with you, but you aren’t a child anymore, and you are far too important to the House now to play your childish games. Just do as you are told, and things will work out wonderfully for you. Just wait and see!”
“Yes, Father,” she replied, still flushed.
“I have decided, now that virtually every lord on the Council knows your name and your story, to announce that you are free for betrothal at the next Council meeting. It will make a pleasant diversion for everyone from our final preparations for war against the wizards. I will be able to marshal my forces beside those of whoever becomes your lord.” He beamed, as if he had thought of something terribly clever. “I shall—ah—put you up for bid, so to speak. And I do expect the bidding to be brisk!”
“But Lord Gildor—” she said, unable to think of anything else to say.
“Hah!” He laughed. “Put him from your mind. I don’t know who your husband-to-be will be, yet, but you can take it as written that whoever he is, he will be as high above Lord Gildor as Lord Gildor is above the chief of my guards!”