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existenceof these special slaves. Ladies might well be hedged about byrule and
custom and kept close in the harem but nothing pre-vented the visits of
another Lady.
Triana, say, with a small entourage of her special slaves.
Now, once Triana and her slaves were within the walls of anestate, it
was child's play for the lady she visited to purchaseone or more; unless she
was totally hedged about, she had sim- ply to order that the requisite price
be sent to Triana's stewardby her own household steward, who would not gainsay
her. The slaves then vanished into the household, assigned to the
lady'spersonal service, never to be seen oh, most certainly never!
by the master of the house. It was easy enough to do, for even on
estates that bred their own slaves there were always morebeing purchased a
special skill might be needed, or the slaves themselves disobliged by
presenting one with too many of onesex and not enough of the other. The
purchase of a great many of these male slaves that Triana so carefully trained
was con-cealed under the bland heading "household expenses."
One of Triana's own slaves, sleek in her livery of dark silverand
midnight, came to the door of the chamber, and Triana looked up and nodded
acknowledgment of his silent signal. Amoment later, a second arrived,
Aelmarkin in tow.
"V'kel Aelmarkin el-Lord Tornal, my Lady," he intoned, asAelmarkin
sauntered past him into the office. Both slaves van- ished as soon as Triana
nodded to them.
"Aelmarkin, it is a pleasure to see you," she said, exudingsubdued
warmth. "Forgive me for not rising to greet you prop-erly, but as you see, you
have caught me in the midst of my lit-tle chores."
Now, Aelmarkin knew very well that she had gotten ample enough
warning of his imminent arrival to have set her "littlechores" aside, and she
knew that he knew and he knew that sheknew that he knew, so they were most
comfortable in their mu- tual knowledge. He looked the visitors' couch over
before sit-ting in it, and was probably not surprised to discover what
adisadvantage it put him at.
"My cursed cousin has covered himself with glory," he grumbled, as a
slave appeared at the door, offered him wine, and disappeared again. "1 hope
you've been making better progress than I. It will be worth it to me to lose
this bet if youcan bring him down."
She smiled enigmatically. "You are aware that the key to allthis is
to either get rid of his mother or encourage him to put her in
her appropriate place?"
Aelmarkin wasn't stupid; she had to grant him that. He sat up or did
so as much as the couch would allow him. "So it's Lady Lydiell who rules that
roost, does she? I'd suspected asmuch. That's hardly surprising, given how
long she has beenthe sole authority on that estate." He looked sour, and would
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probably have added his disapproval of a lady assuming such
authority, but that was hardly politic in Triana's presence.
"But it's high time that Lord Kyrtian assumed his proper role as head
of the estate, I should think," Triana replied, carefullyexamining her
flawlessly polished nails. "And I expect, after all of his victories in the
field, he's not going to be content to sit back and let someone else manage
his property anymore."
Aelmarkin relaxed back in his seat and produced a thin smile. "And
the right woman could would! certainly en-courage him in that direction,
wouldn't she? The only question in my mind is, to what effect?" The smile
hardened. "It is notgoing to please me particularly to find that the mother
has been supplanted by the equally competent wife."
She left off examining her nails and gave him a chill look. How very
like a male to assume thatshe intended to take the mother's place! "I do
assure you, Aelmarkin, thatwedding that child is no part of my plans. There is
nothing about his estatesor his person that could tempt me to the folly of
puttingmy es- tates andmy person into his legal control."
"See that you remain of that mind," Aelmarkin respondedshortly.
There was no mistake; he fully expected her to be that foolish! Did he think
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