Elbig Shelstone

From MeiLinWiki

Elbig Shelstone is a character in the serial An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom.

Elbig is the ambitious and debt-laden head of a tailoring concern in the capital, Shelstone and Company, and husband of Twenna Shelstone. Elbig is in his late forties. He is pudgy and florid, balding and a bit oily. He has excellent taste, however. He is not stingy with Twenna, but he is an indifferent lover at best.

He is using his beautiful young wife to further his ambitions by offering her as mistress to the king. The immediate effect of the rumors that his wife was Harsin's favorite mistress was a respectful silence from his many creditors. Starting on Spring's Beginning of 990 KY, the Shelstones have been installed by the king at Middlemont, a royal property near the Keep, with one of the conditions being that Harsin have exclusive access to Twenna.

A mysterious sponsor is paying the Shelstones for Twenna's seduction of Harsin in hopes of capturing the king's ear. Harsin knows of that sponsorship, but hasn't yet discovered that the sponsor is in fact Connin. When Twenna conceives a son, Harsin grants the title and holding of Callant to the Shelstones. This has the effect of moving Elbig just about as far away from the capital as it is possible to be while still remaining in the kingdom, while at the same time making Twenna eligible to be one of Sedra's ladies-in-waiting, allowing him to move her into the Keep without scandal, where she (and the potential heir she is carrying) can be watched more closely, and also to send her to Sairland with Sedra and Brinnid after their marriage.