Several of the heavy timbers that supported the ceiling were obviously new. A circular fireplace complete with chimney dominated the center of the room, replacing the more common fire pit. The crude openings high in the outer wall, necessary with a fire pit, had been filled with colored glass visible from outside the keep.
Rialla stood quietly behind and just slightly to the left of where Laeth sat, her eyes focused on the floor, like any proper slave. She’d had surprisingly little difficulty adjusting to being a slave again; it helped tremendously to know that she was just pretending. Once she took on the role, her nervousness faded until she almost enjoyed herself. She was comfortable enough that she was beginning to suffer from the most chronic condition of slavery—boredom.
Darran was as she remembered it, though she’d never dealt with nobility in their own element before. The place she’d spent most of her time as a slave was a private club where all the young, rich men went to sow their wild oats, away from proper company.
Rialla snorted softly to herself. Darranians did even that in a very civilized manner; they had a customary procedure for breaking society’s edicts.
She and Laeth had been at Westhold for over a week, and Rialla had learned nothing about the political situation here that Ren probably didn’t already know. If it weren’t for the entertainment she found in watching the properly trained Darranian nobles deal with Laeth, she would have been really bored.
He was well connected, and no one wanted to offend him; on the other hand, his complete disregard for propriety could not be ignored. Noblemen just did not become mercenaries; and if they did, they should have the good sense to be defensive about it.
Laeth was more than happy to scandalize his listeners with stories that Rialla suspected he made up on the spot. Second Division General Tyborn had carried the head of a fallen enemy to Sianim, but he didn’t hang it over his dining table—at least Rialla had never seen it there.
Laeth took care to insure Rialla knew who was who—greeting people by their full names. She in turn made a great effort to remember people’s identities and what faction they were with. The latter had been simple up to this point, since most of the people who were invited for the full week of festivities were staunch supporters of Lord Karsten.
At the thought of Laeth’s brother, Rialla suppressed a smile. Who would have conceived a wildman like Laeth could have a brother like Lord Karsten?
They looked alike enough, though to Rialla most Darranians had that tendency. They even had a few of the same characteristics. Lord Karsten was eloquent and intelligent, if even more bound by the rules of society than most Darranians—something that Rialla would have sworn was impossible. He was so charming it would have been difficult not to like him, if one weren’t a slave or peasant. He was unfailingly courteous to even the most menial of servants, but Karsten was unconcerned, not unaware, that his overseer was an animal who abused servants, peasants and slaves alike.
He talked of change and the importance of reforms, working for them with the dedication of a zealot. The revisions that Lord Karsten had made in Darran law would do a tremendous amount of good for the peasants and middle-class citizens of Darran; but his own serfs were starving.
All in all, Rialla preferred his younger brother, who saw with clearer vision, and was much less bound by society’s strictures.
Laeth had slipped back into his role as prodigal son, and rubbed shoulders with Darranian nobility as comfortably as he did with the mercenaries of Sianim. Even seated beside his brother’s wife, Marri, he didn’t lose the easy charm. Only Rialla knew from the whispered conversations she had with Laeth at night that his feelings for Marri hadn’t changed.
There were over a hundred people in the dining hall. Laeth had told Rialla that by the next evening that number would triple, and over five hundred people would attend the ball two nights hence. The day after that, she and Laeth would return to Sianim. For all the drama and high emotion that had started this trip, it was beginning to look as though they might return to Sianim without incident—or information.
When Laeth finished his meal and waved Rialla back from the table, she assumed a position near a window where the wind would give her a little fresh air.
She was the only slave in the room. It was unusual and vulgar to bring one’s slave to a public function, but Laeth shrugged it off and said that he had only recently purchased her and wanted to keep an eye on her for a while. Since it was obvious that she was expensive (the tattoo proclaimed her a highly trained dancer as well as indicating who trained her), no one made a fuss.
Laeth was talking with a small group of people consisting of Lord Karsten, the sharp-eyed, fox-faced Lord Jarroh, who was Karsten’s constant companion, and Lady Marri, who clutched her husband’s arm tightly and stood with her gaze fixed determinedly on the floor. Rialla wondered absently about the topic of conversation. Laeth’s face held the sardonic smile he adopted to hide his feelings. Karsten appeared to be pale under his deeply tanned skin.
As Rialla watched with growing speculation, sweat gathered on Karsten’s forehead and trickled down his temple. He said something and bowed to excuse himself. He gave his wife’s shoulder a dismissing pat, and put her clinging hand on Lord Jarroh’s arm.
As Karsten turned to go, he collapsed suddenly—falling to his knees. Laeth was there only a moment before Lord Jarroh, who was hampered by Marri’s grip. Laeth managed to get a shoulder under his brother’s arm and half carried him to a heavily stuffed sofa.
Her erratic empathy chose that moment to flare briefly to life, and Rialla cringed at the pain Karsten was suffering, though the sofa was close enough that she could tell not a sound crossed his lips. He merely gripped Laeth’s hand and closed his eyes.
With Laeth kneeling at the head of the sofa, Marri had little choice but to pull up a padded bench and sit near the foot.
With an imperious gesture, Lord Jarroh summoned a waiter carrying a tray full of empty glasses. His cool voice was decisive enough to carry over the growing chaos in the room.
“Send a groom and an extra horse to the healer in the village. Tell him it’s urgent, Lord Karsten is ill.” His voice had a bite that sent the waiter running out, heedless of the few glasses that fell from his tray to the floor and shattered.
Lord Jarroh’s eye fell on Rialla and he summoned her to him as well. “Go to the kitchens and have one of the maids bring up clean cloths, hot and cold water. Find a house servant and tell him to bring blankets.” If she hadn’t seen the muscle jump in the side of his face, Rialla would have thought Lord Jarroh as unaffected as he looked.
Rialla ran off to follow Lord Jarroh’s orders with as much speed as the waiter had shown. Lord Jarroh’s name had the same magic as his voice: all Rialla did was mention who sent her and the house and kitchen servants scrambled to obey. She was on her way back to the dining hall when she noticed a stranger in servant’s garb slip out of the room.
It wouldn’t have caught her attention, since Lord Jarroh had been in the process of emptying the room of unnecessary onlookers when she left, except she didn’t recognize the man’s face. Rialla thought she knew all the indoor servants in Westhold, at least by sight. This was one she’d never seen, but he strolled down the hall as if he’d been born here.
Rialla glanced casually around to make sure that no one was in the hall, and then started after him. In the broad corridors of the main floor of the keep it was difficult to follow without being seen, but the servant didn’t seem to notice her. He sauntered casually to an ornate brass-and-wood door that led outside and left the keep.
He walked around the side of the building to the stable yard where the hold livestock was kept. Rialla hesitated; there were not many reasons that a slave would be wandering through the stable. She was bound to be questioned, and she wasn’t sure that it was worth calling attention to herself. Before she made a decision, the servant returned from the stable mounted on a well-bred courser he must have had saddled and waiting.