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barely-pubescent in the pastfew years and he was heartily tired of the wife
who could not or would not take him as seriously as he thought he should
betaken.
"I wish you had managed to take the Manor," Lady Viridina sighed
wistfully. "I hate to think what damage those careless boys are wreaking to
your beautiful home."
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Lady Moth only shrugged. "I have an equally beautiful homehere and
much more manageable," she pointed out. "It's probably just as well that I
didn't try."
For her part, she had been so heartily tired ofher lord that given
that she would not be required to remarry and could havean establishment,
however small, of her own she was pre-pared to allow him to say whatever he
pleased about her in or-der to obtain his freedom. She suspected that he would
claimshe was pleasuring herself with human slaves but as it fell out, he never
got the chance, so her reputation survived intact.
"May I look?" Viridina finally asked, allowing her curiosity to
overcome her reticence. Moth just laughed, showed her how to focus
the instrument, and rose so that Dina could take her seat.
Moth's husband had not even lived to encounter the revolt, though
without a doubt, if he had, he and his son would have been on opposite sides
of the conflict. Her son, who had sud-denly become as conservative as his
father oncehe was in theruling seat, had managed to be slaughtered almost
immediately, and her daughter had fled after an abortive attempt to rule
themanor herself had failed miserably. Lady Moth, as was the tradi-tion in her
family, had always treated her slaves with considera-tion and respect,
entirely as if they were servants, not slaves, and as if they were free to
leave her service if they chose to. She hadtaken all her slaves with her to
the Tower, every slave for whichshe could concoct even the remotest excuse to
have with her a fact which probably would have provided ample fodder forher
husband's accusations. Once there, she had deactivated the elfstones in all of
their collars, making them merely decorative shams, and told them frankly that
they nowwere free to go orstay. They all, to a man and woman, chose to stay.
When the re-volt was at the breaking-point, her slaves had told her. They had
fortified the place, she had armed those who knew how to useweapons. Together,
they had outfaced rebellious ex-slaves and Young Lords. In fact, her burly
young guards called her "little mother," and took as much care of her as if
she had truly given birth to them unlike her own offspring.
"Why not use scrying instead of this device?" Dina asked,moving the
telescope to gaze at another part of the valley.
"Because, my dear, the place is adequately shielded against
scrying oh, not by magic, by all that iron and steel they've managed to
collect." She stared down at the valley, one finger tapping her lips
thoughtfully. "Very clever of them, actually; there aren't three of them
together that are a match for a single one of the Old Lords, but the metal
does their work for them."
Needless to say, her son's magic had not been enough to savehim from
enraged and mistreated humans who came in themiddle of the night to beat him
to death in his own bed espe- cially not whenthey arrived bedecked in thin
iron armbands.
During the chaos of the revolt itself, some of her son's slaves had
escaped to her; the rest fled to the Wizards and the wilder-ness. When more
armed bands of escaped slaves had comeupon the Tower, her people protected and
guarded her while she stood ready to use deadly war-magics if it became
neces-sary. She knew about the effects of iron and steel; she wouldnot have
made any attempt to blast attackers, unlike those fool-ish Elvenlords like
Dina's husband.She planned to blast holes into the earth beneath their feet or
to use her magic to launch large and heavy objects at them. Most of her
anxiety had notbeen for herself, but for her people, if they could not
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convincetheir fellow humans to go away peaceably. She didn't want them hurt on
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