Will Travis play a more important part in the end?

Honestly… I don't believe so. I mean, he'll be there. But he won't be as important as Lauryn. Or the General. Or Kenric.

If the servants and slaves aren't supposed to have keys, then wouldn't a picked lock point towards them?

I'm glad you pointed this out. I should have clarified more. They aren't 'supposed to have keys,' but even the nobles know they do. It's like… just one of those things that the nobles pretend not to condescend to recognize. It's accepted knowledge, but they pretend not to know about it. Does that make sense?

Couldn't the General just demand what he wanted from the fiefs, if the lords were there or not?

The General could do that, but it would be a major faux pas (sp?). Technically, the lords have more power and money than he does, he just has more influence with the king. The General is dancing a very fine line: don't piss off the other nobles, don't let his manipulation of King Duane seem too obvious. Otherwise, the other nobles may seek to put him out of business.

I have a distinct feeling you're going to kill Kenric. Why?!

Why? Well, I'll let you in on a little secret. *whispers* I will not be killing Kenric off. Don't tell anyone, but he shall remain alive. That's enough for now. MUWHAHAHAHA

Author's Note: Hey everyone. A friend of Min's told me that Min liked the notes we wrote her. Go us. Kally is back in this chapter, as is Riyanna and Kaddar. We also get to meet another character in the modern world.

26. Not Your Normal Servant

Kalasin

She was ready for the knock that sounded at the door.

"Riyanna," she greeted the young woman.

The servant curtsied in reply, but before she spoke, Kalasin saw her dark eyes sweep over her shoulder and around her room as if looking for something.

And when she did not find what she was searching for, Kalasin thought she saw a look of …disappointment? Regret?

"Come. I'll lead you to the dining hall. Kaddar has arranged it so that we can have a not-so-formal dinner tonight. And, if he has it his way, you'll have it that way for at least a week. Says he wants to give you time to adjust before you're overwhelmed with the people and dealings of the court."

Kalasin blinked, pleasantly surprised at what Kaddar had done for her. However, she tried to hide her look of surprise when Riyanna glanced at her.

"You will, won't you?"

When Kalasin didn't reply, the young woman shrugged. "No matter. Whether you're adjusted or not, you'll still need to be formerly introduced to the court one time or another. And I don't envy you, having to deal with those stuffy headed fops."

"Surely they're not all stuffy headed fops?"

Riyanna shrugged again. "No, of course not. There are a couple of people who are tolerable. Kaddar isn't that much of an idiot, to surround himself with a bunch of lecturing fools."

Kalasin had to shake her head. Riyanna was unlike any servant she had ever met.

They arrived in the dining room, and Kalasin was silently pleased that what Riyanna had said about the dinner being not-so-formal was true. A table had been set up with, at first glance, enough seats for about a dozen people. She saw Daine, talking to Kaddar who sat across from her. Beside Daine were Kalasin's ladies in waiting. There was a handful of people Kalasin did not recognize, presumably some of Kaddar's people. And, there were two empty seats.

Kalasin knew that she was supposed to take the one beside Kaddar.

Riyanna took the other.

Kalasin's hand stopped mid-reach in front of her goblet. "She said this wasn't going to be formal, but I didn't think that it was going to be that informal," she muttered.

Kaddar seemed to freeze beside her. And, as if they had all been waiting for his cue, the rest of the table fell silent.

"Pardon?" he finally said.

"Well, I…" she glanced about uncertainly. "Do you often invites the servants here to dine with you?"

The silence was utterly complete; she fought to keep her face composed. Had she said something wrong?

Kaddar turned to glance across the table. "Riyanna," he said darkly.

Riyanna grimaced at his tone and gave Kalasin an apologetic look.

"What's going on?" Kalasin queried, tightly controlling anger and suspicion out of her voice.

"Forgive my cousin any deception," Kaddar finally said. "It was not meant with malice."

It took a moment for her to understand. "Your cousin?"

He looked pained. "Of a sort, yes."

She sat there in her seat, staring down at her plate and feeling the uncomfortable weight of the following silence on her shoulders. She wanted to glance up and glare daggers at Riyanna. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to get up and return to her room. She wanted to get up and return to Tortall.

But she couldn't lose face like that. Not here, not now.

So instead, she took a long, quiet breath and lifted her head, a smile plastered onto her face. "How delightful. You are privileged, of course, to have such a cousin by your side." The insult, in any other situation, would have been obvious, but Kalasin made sure she said it in a way that made it seem as if she were offering a genuine compliment.

Kaddar raised a surprised eyebrow at her. "Yes, privileged indeed," he said, using the same pleasant tone that Kalasin herself had used to cover his own sarcasm.

The person sitting on Kaddar's other side, a young man in a smart military styled uniform, craned his head around Kaddar to peer carefully at her. Kalasin didn't deign to recognize his staring, but she couldn't help but blink when he surprised her and laughed.

"Has something amused you, Sivario?" Kaddar asked dryly. The tone he used made it obvious that they were at least close companions.

"No more than the usual of Riyanna's antics," the young man said.

Riyanna gave the young man a glare that would have caused Kalasin to hesitate if she had been its recipient. "Do us all a favor, Sivario," she said, "and please shut up."

Considering the way the rest of the table relaxed and laughed at the last request, Kalasin guessed that it wasn't unusual for Riyanna to ask Sivario to shut up. And from the teasing wink Sivario gave Riyanna in reply, she deduced that he was used to it as well.

Tension broken, most everybody lapsed back into the conversations that had been previously interrupted. Kalasin endured the dinner as well as she can, nodding politely when addressed and smiling during the appropriate times of the conversation. It was perhaps the longest meal she had ever experienced in her life.

Once it was over, she slipped outside, only wanting some fresh air. But she was irresistibly drawn to the gardens, and she found herself walking one of the several footpaths that twisted through the greenery.

But her peace was not to go uninterrupted.

"Princess? Kalasin?"

She stiffened when she recognized the voice calling out to her. "Lady Riyanna, is there something I can do for you?" she asked coolly.

The emperor's cousin grimaced. "I just wanted to apologize for my earlier dishonesty."

Kalasin lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. In the silence that followed, she tried to ignore the look that Riyanna was giving her.

"You shouldn't be so mean to him," she finally said softly, breaking the silence that Kalasin would have preferred with an unexpected comment.

"Excuse me?"

"I was watching. I saw you the moment you stepped off your ship, and I heard what you said to him right before you were led to your room."

Kalasin now watched the woman with the same calculating look that she had given her.

"He is my cousin. He's also stubborn, difficult, and sometimes overly righteous. But… he's my cousin. And I know him the way that only I could." Riyanna's dark eyes were sharp. "And you had no right to say that to him, to treat him thus and judge him as a stranger."

Kalasin felt both insulted and refreshed at the woman's directness. "And so you decided to get revenge by tricking me into thinking that you were a servant?"

"No," Riyanna shook her head. "I… can somewhat understand why you may have been so snappish. I had heard that your father refused you the chance of knighthood when you were a child, and considered that you may have once again been pushed upon the responsibilities of being a princess."

"Oh?"

"Yes. So I decided to give you another chance. It has been my experience that people, or at least nobles, reveal more of their true face while in the presence of servants than in other nobles."

Kalasin digested this information. "So you decided to pretend to be a servant so that you can study my 'true face.' Did I pass?"

But Riyanna didn't answer the question. Instead, she said, "Tell me, the rumors say that female knights are common in Tortall. Is that true?"

Kalasin was surprised at this turn of subject. "Well, not necessarily. But females are common amongst the Queen's Riders."

Riyanna was mulling over Kalasin's words, when a voice called, "Riyanna?"

The so addressed young woman's eyes blinked and then narrowed as she recognized the speaker.

"Too late to make a run for it now," Kalasin murmured, "he knows that you've seen him."

A look of surprise crossed the young woman's face. Then she smiled. "How do you know if that's really what I intended?"

"Well, I was put in a similar position when you called my name earlier. I recognized the look on your face," Kalasin replied with an impish smile.

Riyanna laughed at that, and so when two young men came upon them, she greeted them with a smile. "Cousin," she said to Kaddar. She ignored the other.

The other, who was the one who had first called out to Riyanna, recognized the slight and merely smiled.

Kaddar shook his head. "Princess, may I formerly introduce you to Commander Sivario? His is the fist that commands my armies. You may have talked to him during dinner."

Commander Sivario, who couldn't in all truth be that much older than she was, took Kalasin's hand and pressed a light kiss over her knuckles.

"Don't spare a thought for Sivario's exquisite manners, Kalasin," Riyanna said, rolling her eyes, "Sivario slobbers like that over every young woman he meets."

The only person who laughed at that was Sivario. Kaddar sighed while Kalasin tried to take her hand back.

"True," Sivario admitted. "But there's only one woman whom I really want to slobber over." His eyes looked straight at Riyanna's.

Kalasin was amusingly surprised when she saw the red tinge coming to Riyanna's cheeks. She was even more so when Riyanna retreated from Sivario's captivating gaze.

"Kaddar, I've just remembered, there's something I wanted to tell you…" she grabbed his arm and started hauling him away.

"But the Princess," Kaddar immediately started to say.

Riyanna glanced over her shoulder and glared at Sivario. "Sivario will escort her back to her rooms, won't you, Sivario?"

Sivario bowed. "I'd be delighted to."

Kaddar, too, glanced over his shoulder back at them. But instead of Riyanna's glare, he had a helpless 'save me' look on his face.

Kalasin heard Sivario chuckling as they watched them disappear.

"Well, then," Kalasin said lightly.

Sivario glanced at her and laughed. "Don't worry. Riyanna doesn't act like that all the time."

"Only around you."

"Only around me," he admitted. Sivario smiled at her, and Kalasin wondered why Riyanna didn't like this charming young man. He had about him a mischievous twinkle that immediately made Kalasin want to reach out hug him. Right before she smacked him, of course.

He offered her his arm, and he led her back to her room in a congenial silence.

Until she decided to break it.

"You're young to be the Commander of Kaddar's armies," she said.

He gave her a side-long glance. "Kaddar and I are the same age."

"Yes. Exactly."

There was a short silence in which he quickly weighed her pointed words. And then when he turned his gaze back to her, she was surprised at how chilled it suddenly was.

"Make no mistake: Kaddar is emperor here," he said as they stopped just in front of her door. "You do yourself no favor by holding grudges against him. If you don't mind a word of advice, Princess, tread carefully around my liege."

She nodded in understanding as she opened her door. "Ah, well. Might I suggest you do the same when concerning Riyanna?"

And with a nod, she shut the door in his silence.

Nobles' Bane: Chapter 24; The Third day after Lord Kismet's kidnapping

He still wasn't here. He should have been here last night. Where was he?

She felt someone trying to reach out to her through her pin and sat up.

Lauryn?

Oh. Travis. It's you.

Travis was silent for a moment. Kenric not there yet?

No.

Don't worry. He'll come.

Sure. How did yours go? You and Nathan ready for the next one?

Yes, Lord Tallun was amazingly easy to kidnap. And Nathan got Lord Mornth without a hitch. These men think they're invincible gods or something, to care so little about their own castle security. We're planning on going out to nab Lord Jaranth's son tonight.

They were each supposed to go out with their groups to kidnap one of the six nobles that were in General Aleyn's highest esteems. Then, Nathan and Travis were supposed to meet up for one of the last two: Lord Jaranth. Unfortunately, Lord Jaranth was currently in residence at the castle in Corus. So they had had to settle for his eldest son instead.

She and Kenric were supposed to meet up to grab Lord Solran together. The last of the nobles.

Except that he wasn't here yet.

Don't worry, Lauryn. He's safe. If he were dead, we would both have known through the pins.

That was true, and it did ease some of her worry.

Why hasn't he contacted one of us yet? He was supposed to be here yesterday.

Maybe something came up. Lauryn, stop worry. Hey, got to go; Nathan is snapping at Lord Mornth. See you in a couple days, all right?

All right. Till then.

Love you, Lauryn.

~*~*~

"Lady Jade! They're here!"

Lauryn, who would have bet a sizable amount of money that she would never have been happy to hear Cecil speak, perked up immediately.

Kenric? she reached out through her pin.

Kenric's tired voice sounded from behind her. "Lauryn."

She pulled herself to her feet, ready to throw her arms around him in a tight hug, but pulled back at the last moment.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, just tired. Sorry about the delay. One of my men broke his leg. I was going to contact you, but we had to first lose the hunters that Lord Akiren's men put on our trail." He gave her a weary, but genuine smile of apology. "But we did get Lord Akiren. Look."

She glanced back to where he pointed and saw Lord Akiren hog-tied and hanging upside down from a horizontal stick that was held by two of his men. Lord Akiren was obviously awake and angry, his body swung and jerked from his bindings like an angry animal.

"Whenever one of us gets tired of holding, we trade with another man. The lord was a lot easier to transport this way," Kenric said, smiling a sweet smile.

And then she did something unexpected: she laughed.