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muchmore likely to comply.
"Now, I don't want anyone to start gettingtoo creative," he warned.
"Don't let anyone go maim himself, or try to counter-feit plague or something,
but if people get other ideas abouthow to look less than happy and healthy,
let them go to it. Par-ticularly I'm a bit worried about the little children
giving thingsaway 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."
"There're several of the parents figuring on that now, my lord," one
of the supervisors assured him. "If nothing else,everybody's agreed that we
can hide the littlest off somewhere nobody'll see them, all in a group.
Perhaps we could take themout into the woods, and let them have a
camping-excursion.Leave it to us, we'll take care of it. Tell them it's a
holiday treat, and they'll be good as lambs."
So many details as soon as Kyrtian thought he'd dealt suc- cessfully
with the last, another occurred to him. It wasn't untildays later that his
mother approached him as he was arranging with one of the building crews to
make "alterations" to theworkers' quarters. It had occurred to him by then
that it was un-usual enough for his people to have their own little homes
andvillages instead of being herded into vast warehouses when they weren't
working and he'd better have their quarters lookshabby and ill-made!
Lady Lydiell waited patiently as he and the builders quicklyworked
out what was needed; it was pretty clear that she wanted to speak with him
alone, so he dismissed them as soon as hecould, and closed the door of his own
new office behind them.
She sat with a rustle of silk and a swirl of scarlet skirts. "You
told me to come to you when I had your harem, and I have," she said simply,
and the words hit him like a splash of cold water in his face. "They're ready
for you to prepare them."
He didn't allow the shock to freeze his thoughts, though. "I don't
have anything on my plate at the moment, so I had best see to them, then," he
told her, and was pleased to see a bit of surprise in her eyes that he was
willing to deal with the un-pleasant duty so quickly. Sheknew that he hated
meddling withhumans' minds through their collars, especially for a purposelike
this
But on the whole, he'd rather just get it over with so that he
wouldn't have to dwell on it.
"That's fine," she replied quickly, getting to her feet with
thatgrace he admired so much and was so much a part of her. "Comealong; I've
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converted your old nursery to a harem; it was themost secure suite in the
manor and the only one not in use."
"It had to be the most secure, didn't it?" he chuckled, openingthe
door for her. "Not only did you have to worry about some-thing getting in at
me, you had to worry about me getting out!"
"And a mischievous escape-artist you were, too," she re-torted.
"Well, I can tell you that I amvery proud of Tenebrinth, and you will be, too,
when you see these women. With all of the upheavals, the slave-trade has been
very much disrupted "
"Which I will not shed tears over," he responded, with a hintof a
frown.
"Nevertheless, it has madehis task harder." The look she gave back to
him was one of reproach. "Many of the slave-markets have been closed down, and
others have only the most meager of selection. On the other hand, if it hadn't
been so dis-rupted, I doubt we would have found three women so perfectlysuited
to our purposes. I doubt that even the great Lord Kyn-dreth will wonder why
your harem is so small, once he seesthese girls."
"Oh?" Now his curiosity was piqued.
She nodded, her hair falling in a graceful curve across herbrow as
she did so. She pushed it back with an impatient hand. "Firstly, I very much
doubt thatanyone other than their trainer and former owner have ever seen
them, which makes it mucheasier to carry off the fiction that you would have
owned them yourself for several years. Secondly, if the trade were not
sodisrupted, I doubt if we would have been able to get them at all;they'd have
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