A great many of them were approximately his age—much younger than Aelmarkin—the idle offspring of Great Lords who didn't care to attend this particular challenge-fight themselves, but wanted to send representatives. Of course this meant that he was surrounded by those with little to do except chatter about others of their set, current fads, useless pastimes, and new fashions. The people of their social set were people he didn't know anything about, and the pursuits they found so important—well, he couldn't imagine why anyone would waste time on such things. But in their eyes, he was clearly impossibly backward, out-of-step, and provincial.
None of them knew anything about any of the subjects he cared about, which made him sound both a bore and a boor.
And after he'd shown a flicker of startlement at statements he considered outrageous, they probably put him down as callow and a prig.
Well, by their standards, I am a prig. I don't consider an afternoon spent in having my jaded appetites aroused by poor human girls who only exist to serve as my concubines to be particularly amusing.
After the first hour, they snubbed him openly, and with unveiled contempt.
This, strangely enough, made him very uncomfortable. He hadn't expected them to make him feel that way. He could try to tell himself that these people didn't matter, that all he had to do was remain polite and comport himself like a gentleman and nothing they reported back to their fathers would do any harm—but that didn't make the sneers and the sniggering any easier to bear. He didn't like them, but they were many and he was one; it was all too easy to feel the hurt of the scorned outsider. He truly hadn't anticipated that sort of reaction from himself, and he wished there was a way he could gracefully extricate himself and go home.
As he stared fixedly down at the wooden-walled arena below him, he heard whispers behind him, and snickering, and felt the back of his neck grow hot. He was just glad that Gel was here with him, in the role of bodyguard; somehow it was easier to stay composed with Gel's stone-faced example to copy.
I'm on their choice of ground; the best I can hope to do is get out of this without making any major blunders. Mother couldn 't possibly have known how slippery this situation could become. He was acutely aware that they had far more experience than he at the maneuvering of intrigue and politics. He felt horribly young, shallow, and naive; these people had drunk machination with their first milk, and he had no idea how to deal with situations they wouldn't even hesitate over.
Kyrtian had taken a seat in the first row to avoid meeting their eyes any longer, but they continued to speak to each other in voices pitched for him to overhear, taunting him to respond.
"Who, exactly, is this fellow?" asked an arrogant young male a little to Kyrtian's left.
"My cousin Kyrtian," Aelmarkin said lightly. "Son of the late Lord Darthenian, my uncle."
"Lord Darthenian..." someone murmured behind him. "That name sounds familiar. Don't I know it from some old story or other?"
"Try coupling the name with daft," drawled another, sounding so smug that it was all Kyrtian could do to keep from standing up and going for the fellow's throat. "Daft Darthenian, pot-hunter, excavator of things better left buried, and pursuer of useless old manuscripts. Missing in pursuit of same, and presumed dead, oh, decades ago."
"Now, Ferahine, there's nothing wrong with having a hobby," replied Aelmarkin, in a tone so tolerant that Kyrtian clenched his hands on the armrests of his chair to keep himself in his seat. "Isn't insect-collecting as silly? I've seen you send slaves out bobbing about in fields and forests with a net and a bottle—and all those boxes of dead beetles are just as useless as unreadable manuscripts!"
"Point taken. Still, hobbies are all very well, Aelmarkin," said the drawler, "But no gentleman and no sane fellow goes off himself to dig up nasty old discards in parts unknown, now, does he? I certainly don't go rambling through briars with nets and bottles! That's what slaves are for! And he went out alone, too! Why, that was simply insane, if you ask me."
Kyrtian gritted his teeth. He knew he was meant to overhear all of this. He knew they were trying to provoke him. And they were only saying in his hearing what they told each other—and what their elders said. If he just kept his temper, he would learn a great deal. If they thought he was too dull to understand—or too cowardly to respond—what possible harm could it do?
Still, it was the hardest thing he had ever done, to sit there and let strangers abuse the memory of his own father, without challenging them.
"Alone!" exclaimed the first speaker. "Why didn't he take slaves, if he wouldn't send them to do his hunting for him? Aelmarkin, admit it, he must have been deranged!"
There was an audible rustle of fabric, marking Aelmarkin's careless shrug. "He was always secretive about these hunts of his, and never more so than on the last one. He was hunting the site of the Great Gate that brought us from Evelon, and the things that were discarded as useless because they no longer functioned after passing the Gate. Why? I haven't a notion."
"Yes, well, it's obvious he was an obsessive, at the very least," said the drawler, dismissively. "And judging from the disaster of a conversation I had with Kyrtian, yonder, obsession runs in the family blood. All the poor fool can talk about is military matters! History, tactics, battles no one cares about." A sneer crept into the drawl. "As if anyone would ever give the likes of him command over so much as a squad of latrine-diggers."
By now Kyrtian's neck burned, his cheeks were nearly the same temperature, and his jaw and shoulders ached with the strain of tightly-clenched muscles. He gladly would have given half his possessions for the opportunity to come at any of those foppish fools in barehanded combat!
And that's just what they expect from you, he reminded himself, trying mentally to throw a little cold water on his overheated temper. They think you 're an atavistic barbarian, and they may very well be waiting for you to stand up and attack them physically! They would have the right to challenge you or bring you up in front of the Great Council.
And that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was what Aelmarkin wanted him to do, for such an attack would prove to everyone's satisfaction that he, Kyrtian, was just as mad as Aelmarkin claimed in his petition. An Elvenlord and a gentleman did not settle differences hand-to-hand. An Elvenlord and a gentleman issued a proper challenge, and settled it as this feud was being settled.
I have to keep my mouth closed and my eyes open and find out just how these things work! he told himself vehemently. So that if I get a chance, I can arrange for these fools to eat their words without salt!
Beside him, Gel stood at wary attention, as impassive as any statue, and as invisible to these fools as any other bodyguard. Gel had heard every word, too—but you would never know it by looking at him.
Copy Gel, he told himself. Stay quiet, if not calm. Wait, and watch. He knew only that these feuds were settled in trial-by-combat, using slaves as proxies. If his fighters were better-trained than these—
Then it might be worth dealing with these dolts in a way they 'II understand.
Abruptly, conversation behind him ceased, as some signal he didn't recognize warned the idlers that the combat was about to begin. Abruptly caught up in spite of himself, Kyrtian leaned forward with the rest, as the light in the arena brightened, and the lights above their seats dimmed.