Elminster Must Die: The Sage of Shadowdale

by Ed Greenwood

  Fentable had looked more than worried, come to that. He’d looked sick … and he happened to be one superior that Halance liked, trusted, and respected. The man must know things he wasn’t allowed to tell underlings, to make him look that way.

  Halance shook his head. Things always happened all at once, stlarn it. When everyone was already too busy to tend to them properly. “Beshaba’s kiss,” the older courtiers called it. Mischance, farruking, ever-irritating mischance …

  Manshoon smiled darkly. Mischance or artful manipulation.

  Halance yawned again. He had to find Arclath and warn him that the mask dancer had been listening to their talk the night before and might well be the paid informant of some noble client or other.

  Yet he hadn’t time to be seeking nobles across the fair city, with all the daily moving of furniture and linens and replacement of oil lamps to be done.

  Not with all the extra council preparations on his desk, the untidy heap of fresh scrawled notes from Fentable and Mallowfaer and the gods alone knew who else about this, that, and the other little details.

  Now prepare the lure …

  Note, make a note; Halance snatched up a fresh scrap of parchment from the pile given him to make his senior chamberjack notes, and a quill from his stand, and wrote hastily, “Tell Arclath Delcastle, Belnar murdered. Also, the dancer in the Dragonriders’ was listening to all we said.”

  “Tarandar,” Mallowfaer bellowed from down the hall. “The new chairs and stools are being unloaded at Zorsin’s dock right now! I’ve sent Emmur and Darlakan for wagons, but get yourself down there to see they don’t break or mar every last piece in their loading!”

  Right on cue. As anticipated and planned.

  “Saer!” Halance shouted back. “I hear! And I’m on my way!”

  Hurry, chamberjack. Hasten; mustn’t be late. Neither Mallowfaer nor my agent who waits for you should be kept waiting.

  He dashed to the door, then spun around, strode back to his desk to snatch up the still-wet note, and ran.

  For a wagon, it was a long way to Zorsin’s dock, but not such a long route for one hurrying man. Which meant …

  He had a fair idea of where Arclath would be. The Eel or the Dragonriders’ Club or possibly Saklarra’s Wonderful Willing Wenches if our young Lord Delcastle was feeling particularly frisky.

  If the Fragrant Flower of House Delcastle happened to be elsewhere … well, there were half-a-dozen inspections and negotiations regarding the upcoming council that a senior chamberjack could parlay into depart-the-court forays. Yet telling Arclath soonest would be best and would get it off his desk and out of the way, the better to devote all his attention to all the council details …

  Into his head, then, came a brief, bewildering vision. It seemed as if a beholder was staring at him fixedly, through an eerie glow, with a dark cavern all around it. A beholder?

  Gods, he was having waking nightmares! This farruking council!

  Shaking his head, Halance Tarandar hastened down one last hall, ducked past the guards with a smile and nod, and hurried into the streets, crossing the promenade and turning immediately into his favorite alley.

  He never even saw the hand that struck him down.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  ENTER A LORD, LAUGHING

  In the sumptuous heart of pink-walled Delcastle Manor, there were rooms most visitors never saw. Rooms whose pink-plastered walls were sculpted into semblances of thickly clustered roses climbing the paneling and entwining above doors.

  Lord Arclath Argustagus Delcastle would have shuddered to see such decor in someone else’s home, but in his mother’s rooms, he was used to it.

  Or so he repeatedly told himself.

  It was a long-standing family rule that blood members of House Delcastle arriving home should present themselves to his mother—or to her personal maid on the rare occasions when Darantha had been ordered to intercept him—so, as he had done so many times before, Arclath took his dashing self up the soaring stairs from the entry hall and through several ornate chambers into the land of sickly roses. Sweeping past the usual impassive guards, he glided into his mother’s receiving room.

  Where the Lady Marantine Delcastle gave him her best well-fed-cat smile. She was sprawled on a daybed whose blood red silks complemented the roses beautifully—but clashed horribly with the flame orange sleeping silks she wore, open to somewhere well below her waist. Not to mention shriekingly discordant with the emerald-dyed fur wrap she’d thrown oh-so-elegantly around her shoulders.

  The hour had crept from very late to very early, but Lady Delcastle was wide awake and practically purring as she languidly ate scorched-orange-peel chocolates and sipped from a tallglass of amberglath “sweetwine” liqueur. Unless she’d found some unusual new diversion to leave her in such a mood, it meant she was very much enjoying the afterglow of being pleasured by three of her strapping “chamberjacks.”

  “Well met, Mother,” Arclath gave her his cheerful, smoothly sardonic greeting. “Are your oiled ones gone?”

  She gave him one of her best sneers. “Don’t belittle my playthings, Arkle dear. They’re more men than you’ll ever be.”

  “How so?” he asked, strolling to her decanter-covered sideboard and regarding her in the mirror above it.

  “Don’t you prefer boys?”

  Arclath shrugged. “No, as it happens. Aren’t those your tastes, Mother?”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “No, unobservant fool, I want men. Men who fight and kill and come to me reeking of sweat and blood and danger. Real men.”

  “Lord Delcastle,” Arclath observed calmly, selecting a decanter and a clean tallglass, “is a real man.”

  His mother’s shrug was far more dramatic than his. “He was, once. Now he’s too drowned in drink to be much of anything.”

  It was an open secret in Suzail that Arclath’s father, Lord Parandur Delcastle, was a habitual drunkard who spent his days walled away in his favorite turret in Delcastle Manor, drinking.

  “And so?”

  “And so, nothing. Disposing of him would make you Lord Delcastle—and you are even less of a man.”

  “And would I be a man if I came to you reeking of sweat and blood and danger?” Arclath asked calmly.

  His mother laughed throatily. “Oh, yes. Not that such a celebratiory moment is all that likely to befall, is it?”

  “Not all that likely,” Arclath agreed, setting the decanter down again and sipping the vintage he’d chosen. “Pleasant dreams, Mother.”

  He strolled out, back into the dimly lit passage—where a hard-faced House guard stood watching him, a loaded and ready crossbow aimed at Arclath’s breast.

  The younger Lord Delcastle raised an eyebrow. “Has heir-hunting season begun, Trezmur?”

  “Orders,” came the curt reply. “Sons have murdered mothers before.”

  “And will again, I fear,” Arclath replied, strolling away down the passage with his tallglass in hand. “Yet not this son. Such a deed would be entirely too … noble. I seek other delights in life.”

  It was a good thing one of those delights wasn’t sleeping, he thought to himself, knowing just how soon he’d be up again and out of the bed that was waiting for him.

  Two passages later, when he arrived at his own chambers, he handed the now-empty tallglass to the doorjack waiting there, went inside, and firmly closed the door.

  Only after the inner door beyond that first one had closed behind him did he add aloud to what he’d told Trezmur, “And when at last I discover the delights I should be seeking, life can truly begin.”

  Bright early morning was flooding through windows that thankfully weren’t framed in sculpted roses. Not that Arclath was lounging and enjoying the view.

  He was at his usual desk, looking over documents, deeds, and an ever-rising pile of cross-strapped-between-boards parchments; the endless scrip of family investments and business dealings.

  Around him, the front chambers of Delcast
le Manor were bustling, as various family factors, clerks, scribes, and coin-stewards hastened up to him to receive their directions among his crisp stream of orders.

  They might have been concealing yawns, but their smiles were genuine; the sooner they were done, the sooner their time was theirs, and once Lord Delcastle left his chair, their days were ordered for them, their tasks clear.

  As he spoke, the factors bowed and bustled out, one by one; trade agents get about early, or inevitably find themselves picking over leavings spurned by others.

  Soon enough, Arclath followed them, spiking his quill and deeming his day’s work done.

  Catching up his favorite gem-handled cane, he gave the clerks an airy wave and swaggered out into the streets, twirling his spike-ended stick like a carefree child.

  These days, success meant departing Delcastle Manor before his mother, exhausted by her parade of hired lovers, awakened and began her daily tyranny. And today, if the gods smiled, would be a string of successes.

  With deft skill, Arclath speared a warm bun from a baker’s tray being rushed past, and before the runner could even start to snarl a curse, tossed the man a lion—enough to pay for four such trays, buns and all.

  The bun was hot and greasy, the spiced meat inside it splendid on his tongue but threatening to leave his chin glistening.

  “Ravenous, Lord?” a hot-nuts vendor called.

  “Not at all!” Arclath replied heartily, not slowing. “Merely keeping in training! And how is the trade in roasted jawcrackers this fine morn?”

  “Hot, Lord—hot! Get them hot while I have ‘em!”

  “Words my mother lives by!” He sauntered on, already hailing the next vendor to indulge in more silly repartee as he tossed a coin to a dirty barefoot child, danced a little flounce-and-flair with her as if she’d been a highborn lady, then with a wave left her and went on, very much the noble dandy at play.

  He was heading for The Eel Revealed, an eatery specializing in cheese-and-eel pies, fiery fortified wines, and oiled young lasses who served them both. A welcoming refuge for the famished stomach in the dear dawn hours …

  She was the sleekest and swiftest of the serving maids, and his favorite. Wherefore she added a wink to her most ardent smile and twirled in front of him to make her skirt swirl fetchnignly to reveal her thigh-garter as she set down his platter in front of him.

  “Ah, thank you, Emsra!” Lord Arclath Delcastle was at his whimsical airiest. “You know how to make a man’s insides roil in delicious pleasure! Just as I—a time or two, when at my most heroic—can claim to know how to do the same to the right maid!”

  Emsra tittered as she removed the dome from the steaming platter with a deft flourish, revealing a heap of succulent eels and morels in sardragon sauce. Or so the menu claimed.

  She’d heard all of his lordship’s favorite lines before, but it was the playful-as-a-child way he delivered them that still smote her into mirth. There were nobles she hid in the kitchens from and nobles she served with stiff, silent care—but if there’d been more nobles like him, she’d have rushed eagerly forward to greet all nobles and cheerfully would have seen to their every little want.

  Around them, The Eel Revealed was growing quiet. The rush of early diners who were departing the city on business or had to get to their shops or to market or to meet and make deals at the docks or in various offices was done, and those who struck work early for highsunfeast hadn’t yet done so.

  Wherefore all the serving maids lounged around Lord Delcastle’s table, sharing in the laughter. Not out of greedy desire to get a coin or two for their troubles—for they knew from experience they’d get those, regardless—but because this man had a way about him that lifted hearts and set folk to laughter and made the day brighter.

  “Sausages,” Varimbra purred in Arclath’s ear then, setting a small side platter down at his elbow. “Compliments of Laethla, who desires your opinion of this new spicing she’s trying.”

  He looked up with a smile to find the women ringing his table all beaming at him, resplendent in their glow-painted suns and high-heeled boots as they struck poses—out of sheer habit.

  “Would any of you care to join me?” he asked, and he meant it. “Surely you’ve worked up hunger? I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, but—”

  But the smiles fell right off their faces, leaving only concern behind, and it had nothing to do with his offer. All of the maids stared over his shoulder at the same cause.

  A cause that approached him rapidly.

  Arclath could move swiftly when he had to, and sprang from his chair, snatching up a hot sausage just in case, even before he turned.

  To behold, striding toward his table with their eyes fixed on him, a frightened palace messenger and a suspicious-faced veteran lady war wizard he’d seen about the palace once or twice.

  “Sausage?” he offered politely, holding it out to her with a bow—and receiving only silence in return.

  From the messenger it was the silence of open-mouthed bafflement; from the war wizard it looked more like cold scorn.

  Arclath shrugged, put the end of the spurned sausage into his own mouth, bit down, and started to chew.

  He had plenty of time to study the stocky, aging war wizard as she bore down on him, and did not fail to notice she had a wand out and ready. She also had a cold-eyed, thin-lipped face like a horse, and a body that seemed to bulge with more muscles than one of your larger palace guards.

  “Lord Arclath Delcastle, I will have words with you,” she announced.

  Hmm. A cold voice, too, and probably very keen wits.

  Arclath sensed the serving maids melting away from around him and turned in smooth haste to tell Varimbra, “Please convey my compliments to Laethla. Peppery, and therefore should result in many drinks being bought and downed. I like it and would be pleased to pay her for this platter and the same again at my next visit.”

  When he turned back to face the wizard of war, she was standing right in front of him. And contriving somehow, though she was a head shorter than he was, to seem to loom over him.

  He sketched the briefest of bows. “Well met, Lady—?”

  She snorted. “Glathra by name. No lady. Spare me your honey-tongued flatteries.”

  She turned her head and gave the messenger beside her a stern look—and he silently stretched out his hand and proffered a parchment note, holding it up and open for Arclath to read but drawing it back and away when, out of sheer habit, he reached to take it.

  Arclath demonstrated that not just lady war wizards could dispense dirty looks, and the messenger blanched, swallowed, and advanced the note again. Arclath didn’t reach for it this time, but merely applied himself to silently reading it.

  “Tell Arclath Delcastle, Belnar murdered. Also, the dancer in the Dragonriders’ was listening to all we said.” Halance’s handwriting. Freshly written, and smudged in one corner, as if handled before dry.

  Belnar murdered?

  He raised his eyes questioningly to Glathra, who snapped, “Just what was ‘all we said,’ and why were you to be so swiftly and urgently told of this killing, Lord Delcastle?”

  “If ‘Belnar’ is Belnar Buckmantle, Lady,” Arclath said stiffly, “he was my friend. Halance can tell you that.”

  “Halance Tarandar’s headless body has just been found in an alley.” Her voice was grim. “He was carrying this note. The Crown desires to know just who ‘we’ are or were and what was said. I’m not accustomed to repeating myself, Lord Delcastle.”

  Arclath stared at her, too shocked to give her the sort of stinging rebuke that most nobles would have greeted such words with. Belnar and Halance—? But only last night, we were …

  The war wizard was watching him like a hawk.

  Arclath bent to take up another sausage. As its greasy magnificence flooded his mouth, he thought back over what had been said across his table at the club.

  His eyes narrowed, and he nodded slowly. Glathra took a step forward but said not a
word. She knew control as well as bluster.

  “The ‘we’ were Halance, Belnar, and me,” he told her. “We’re friends. Not conspirators, Lady Glathra, not schemers after profit. Just friends.”

  The sausage, somehow, was gone. He plucked up another and bit into it. Gods, they were good.

  “They were both,” he added, chewing, “consumed with the tumult of preparing for the coming council, and I was being sympathetic … merely that, not rat-hunting details of security. So, yes, there was much talk of the unfolding arrangements, and more about the probable troubles there’d be with this noble and that, various opportunistic visitors likely to come to town because of the gathering … spies of Sembia, of course …”

  “And did Tarandar or Buckmantle seem particularly interested in anything? Some matter they shared an interest in, perhaps?”

  Arclath grinned weakly. “The charms of the mask dancer who was performing practically in our laps. I don’t think either of them have had much time recently for, ah, dalliance.”

  Glathra nodded. “You,” she told the messenger beside her, as she almost snatched Halance’s note from his hands, “will accompany Lord Delcastle in finding this dancer, identifying her, and bringing her to me. I shall be back at the palace, watching you both from afar.”

  Without pause she turned back to Delcastle and added crisply, “And you shall find her before you do anything else in your life, and bring her safely to me. Not dallying with lasses or over drinks, and not taking time to exchange witticisms with your idle friends. Nothing is more important than this, in your life from now on. Nothing.”

  Delcastle sketched a florid bow. “Though I must observe that I’ve been given commands more politely in my time, I cannot find it in myself to disagree with so charming and fiercely Crown-loyal a lady. I shall obey and strive to—”