Triana laughed aloud, with a glance at the girl to invite her to join in her good humor. Ah, Aelmarkin, she thought, as she settled down to instruct the girl in the use of the teleson-ring and her initial duties. This wager is already won!
Gel knew his business, none better. Kyrtian left the matter of the household to his mother, and took charge of the rest. Now that the warnings were in place and the attitude of the field-hands and farmers had been established, he judged that it was time to prepare the general outward appearance of his people. They must look self-sufficient and prosperous, but not too prosperous. The servants must not look too healthy, too happy. In fact, the ones in the fields must not look happy at all.
He spent a day considering how to accomplish that, researching spells of illusion, wondering what he would do if Lord Kyndreth detected them or broke them. Kyndreth had not gotten where he was by being a fool, and if he detected illusions, he would want to know what they hid—he would first suspect treachery, but he would definitely want to know why there were illusions on human slaves.
Finally, in the twilight, he decided to take a walk to see if the fresh air would clear his head out and let some fresh thoughts in.
The stars were just coming out, and a fine breeze carried the scents of the gardens on its wings. He took a moment to extinguish the glowing globes illuminating the pathways, for he knew the garden paths by heart and had no need of the lights. At the moment, he would rather enjoy the darkness, not because he was brooding, but because he wanted his mind to rest.
How did Aelmarkin's servants look? That would be the sort of thing to get his own people to emulate. Despite their servile stances, there was still something wrong about them that he could not put a finger on. He took slow, deliberate steps and cast his mind back a few days, trying not to frown in concentration. It wasn't an exact memory he wanted, after all, but an impression. How did the ordinary servants, the ones who cleaned the rooms and brought the food from the kitchen, seem to an observer?
It was easy enough to remember the pretty ones, the upper-level slaves, whose duties included being decorative. Those weren't the ones he wanted, at least in part because he wasn't certain any of his people could manage a convincing imitation of a pleasure-slave, and in part because it wouldn't do any harm for Lord Kyndreth to believe that his household was on the austere and sober side. Let Kyndreth think of him as hard-working, somewhat obsessed with his hobby, and not really interested in the opulent life. That would do no harm at all.
It will also reinforce the impression that we aren't worth the attempt to take us over. Profit can only be stretched so far; we might be austere because we can't afford too many luxuries.
Try as he might, all he could come up with was a vague impression of sameness, as if the lesser servants were all as alike as ants, and as interchangeable. They could have been furniture, floor-tiles, the plinths upon which statues stood, they blended so well into the background.
With a flash of insight, he realized at that moment that this was what he wanted!
They must have all been in some drably uniform tunics, or the like, he decided. They aren't supposed to stand out—they should be invisible. Drab tunics would do that. No matter that he didn't know what such a tunic or what-not should look like—any of the seamstresses could deal with that detail. He'd take the need to them first thing in the morning, and let them decide how to make everyone on the manor lands uniformly drab.
As for making people look unhappy ... he grinned as another idea came to him. I'll have the field-workers stick a burr or a pin somewhere in their clothing where it'll irritate them without really hurting them—or put stones in their shoes, or wear shoes too tight or too big. That'll give them all sour expressions, should any of Kyndreth's people come snooping about.
He yawned, and realized that he'd been up far too long—but they were all going short on sleep, trying to get themselves ready. Bed, he decided. And first thing in the morning, the manor seamstresses.
Even though he woke very, very early—just at the break of dawn, in fact—when he showed up unannounced at the seamstress's workrooms, they were already well into the day's labors. That surprised him; he'd always known, in a vague way, that his people began their work early, long before he awoke, but he hadn't ever given much thought to what that meant.
Here was a large, well-lit room, furnished with comfortable chairs in which several women were seated, sewing diligently. There was a large table covered with a piece of fabric at the far side of the room, and a woman with a wickedly-bladed pair of scissors made deft cuts in it, folding and laying aside the pieces she had made as she went along. Bolts of fabric were arrayed in a rack along one wall, ribbons and other trim were wound around wooden cones on pegs, and spools of thread were arranged in little racks beside them. He put his need to the chief of the ladies, a formidable dame with silver-streaked hair, explaining the effect he wanted, and why. She pursed her lips and frowned.
"My lord—do you realize what you are asking when you request common uniform tunics for the entire estate? Aye, we've enough seed-sack material about, but no time—even a simple tabard with no hems would need side and shoulder seams, and it'd be so crude it would look makeshift—"
"Dye," interrupted one of the women engaged in some mysterious task that seemed to involve the edges of a great deal of fabric that pooled on either side of her. "Don't bother with making anything new, just fire up dye-pots and have everyone come in and dunk an old tunic and trews, so you get the look of wear as well as having it look uniform."
"Oh, well-thought!" the older woman exclaimed, her brow clearing. "That might be a problem, mightn't it—if it looked as if everyone in the place had new clothes!"
"For color—black'd be best, walnut-black the cheapest, and we've got plenty of that; soon or late, everybody needs some bit of black, and that way I doubt there'll be much complaining about spoiling something good." The woman was very pleased with her ingenuity, and so were Kyrtian and her supervisor.
"Aye, that's the way! Thenkee, Margyt!" The head seamstress beamed and patted Kyrtian on the shoulder as if he was a small boy. "Don't worry your head about it, my young Lord, we'll handle this for you; when the day comes, everybody'U be making a nice depressing background." She actually pushed him—gently, but pushed him, nevertheless—out the door. He didn't resist; in fact, he was rather amused at the situation. He'd had no idea how things were run on the domestic side, but clearly this woman was as much a "commander" in her own ranks as Gel was in his!
And he had no doubt that she would get the job done, either. She had the air about her that said she would ride right over the top of anyone and anything to complete whatever she'd promised.
He went back to his own preparations, calling in each of the supervisors of work-parties and explaining to them what he wanted done—the burrs and all—and why. He'd discovered a very long time ago that if people knew why they were being asked to do something that seemed senseless, they were much more likely to comply.
"Now, I don't want anyone to start getting too creative," he warned. "Don't let anyone go maim himself, or try to counterfeit plague or something, but if people get other ideas about how to look less than happy and healthy, let them go to it. Particularly I'm a bit worried about the little children giving things away—the older ones will be all right if you put it to them as being important, but the littlest are used to running right up to any stranger and saying what they think."