“Father, I—”
“Not a word, Torsard,” Lord Elvarr Spurbright said quickly, in the tone of voice that meant he would brook no defiance. “Not a word.”
He held up an admonishing finger, and his son was astonished enough to blink at it mutely for the few moments Lord Elvarr needed.
Plucking up the great polished wooden ball that crowned one of the low footposts of his bed, the head of House Spurbright plucked a fine chain out of a hidden recess in the post that the root-peg of the ball had been sitting in, like a giant tooth, and dropped the ball back into place.
Torsard’s mouth fell open. His eyes bulged in fresh astonishment as his father undid a fine silver clasp at one end of the chain and reached out to snap it around Torsard’s wrist. Closing the clasp at the chain’s other end around his own wrist, Lord Elvarr nodded toward the balcony.
Mutely Torsard trotted after him. It was not until they were out on the balcony, with the great bedchamber doors closed behind them and the night breeze ghosting past under the moonlight, that Lord Elvarr spoke again.
“Yes, the chain is magic. And it cost me more than our tallhouse in Suzail, so don’t pull away from me suddenly and go breaking it. It cloaks our speech from everyone. Your mother could step between us right now and we could put our mouths to both her ears and talk—and she’d not hear our words, only squawks and gruntings. Nor could a war wizard, with all his spells. This is a family secret, mind: not even Thaelder knows of it. Keep things that way.”
He walked to the stone rail, Torsard following. Together they gazed out and down at the night. Rolling wooded hills and verdant pastures stretched north into the night and the not-so-distant mountains, under a sky glittering with stars. Below the balcony, on the lawns and in the orchard garden, there were no signs of anyone still up and about. “Now, you wanted to ask me something?”
“Yes, Lord Father. Ah … at the Fallingmoon feast I heard Lord Delzuld talking with some of the older lords—Gallusk and Illance among them—about the king. He said the Obarskyrs are corrupt and it was high time we were free of them, and that they had no stronger claim to the Dragon Throne than any of us! Is this true? Why does he hate the Obarskyrs so? And why were so many lords agreeing with him?”
“Steady, son, steady. Ask, receive answer, then ask again, not this flood of why, why, and why! As to the first: Lord Delzuld—’twas Lord Creion, aye? Head of his house? I thought as much—says many things. Most aren’t true, but he believes that if he says them oft and loud enough, those who listen will begin to think they are true. For so it has worked before, on many folk in diverse lands. Truth is a surprisingly mutable thing.”
Lord Spurbright smiled wryly. “As to the second: the Delzulds are the wealthiest nobles in Arabel, and would swiftly become far richer if they paid no taxes to the Dragon Throne, and could crush trade rivals without the annoying hindrance of Crown law. More that that: most folk of Arabel—commoners as well as proud houses—would fain be free of Cormyr if they could. They were once a free city, and hunger to be so again; that will never change, in either of our lifetimes.”
Lord Spurbright turned to face his son directly. “As to why he’s gaining so much support: very few nobles are pleased with His Majesty at the moment. Nor have they been since the mage Vangerdahast rose from being just court wizard to also being royal magician, head of the war wizards and—in all but name—the real ruler of Cormyr.”
“Vangerdahast. They hate him, I know,” Torsard Spurbright said. “But why? Just fear of his spells?”
“That, and his use of the war wizards as his spies. More than one who’s spoken out against him—remember Lord Lorneth Crownsilver?—has vanished, probably permanently silenced by our beloved royal magician. It should come as no surprise to you that we hate anyone and anything that seeks to curtail our powers—just as farmers hate tax collectors, and outlaws hate Purple Dragons. Well, King Azoun and his Royal Magician Vangerdahast have steadily been making new laws, these last few years, that increasingly restrict the power of all nobles to do as they please with those who dwell on their lands. Dissatisfaction with Azoun’s rule is widespread, and growing.”
“So why don’t we all act together?”
“Lad, have you ever known more than three nobles to agree on anything?”
“Yes: that the king’s rule is bad! So the Obarskyrs are few, and I’ve heard the war wizards really serve Vangerdahast, not the king—”
“Correct.”
“—so if enough of us make common cause, and call on our house wizards …”
“To do what? Blast the palace in Suzail to smoking rubble? Torch cows in the fields? Melt the banners of Purple Dragons as they come riding to arrest us? Talk sense, boy!”
Nettled, Torsard Spurbright slapped the balcony rail, stared away into the night, and said petulantly, “Well, I don’t see why we don’t just use the spells of our house wizard to get what we want! I’ve seen Thaelder—”
Lord Elvarr rolled exasperated eyes. “Know you nothing but hunting and hawking, Torsard? Every titled family in Cormyr has a house wizard—and every last spellhurler of that sort in all the realm is a war wizard, or has their minds reamed by the war wizards nightly. House wizards are here to keep us in line, and report back all talk of treason, and everything else interesting we do, to old Vangerdahast. Remember that, if you’d like to keep your head a while longer.” He raised his hand and rattled the fine chain meaningfully. Its magic glowed obligingly.
“So we can do nothing to stop the Obarskyrs? And old Thunderhast? While they do just as they please to us?”
“Gently, son, gently. I did not say that.”
“Well, then?”
“Well, then, you’ll learn in good time. News will spread at revels and in marketplaces and taverns—news that comes as great astonishment to all of us, who know nothing and had no part in what befell.”
“No part in it all? We’re noble!”
“Precisely. And the essence of being noble is getting what you want without seeming to take any direct action to get it. Leaving your reputation unstained and your hands clean. Remember that, if you remember nothing else.”
Florin smiled.
Yon hillside was familiar; they were right where he’d planned to be. They’d already passed Espar well to the west, and must now circle back north and east to strike the road at Hunter’s Hollow where he’d agreed to meet Delbossan. It was time to slow their pace, so they’d not reach the road until that third day.
Behind him, trudging up to join him, Narantha groaned. Florin turned, lifting an eyebrow in silent question.
“My feet hurt!” Narantha hissed. “These stlarning boots!”
Florin nodded. “You can do them off now; we’ll halt here awhile. ’Tis past time we bathed.”
The Lady Crownsilver lifted her head to give him a startled glare. “Bathe? Where?”
Florin pointed at the stream. Just here, the waters of the Dathyl looked placid—and green, as they slid lazily over scum-covered rocks. Narantha regarded the water with disgust, and rather predictably hissed, “I’m not getting myself wet in that!”
Florin turned and pointed through the trees in another direction, to where a swarm of tiny insects danced above a muddy patch of leaves. “There’s the alternative.”
The Lady Narantha Crownsilver drew herself up and said in her most frigidly haughty manner: “Falconhand, if you think I’m bathing here at all …”
“We’ll both be washing,” Florin said flatly. “One at a time, while the other stands beastwatch. We both stink enough that beasts can readily scent us, now, from a good distance away. Your long hair and reluctance to get wet have left you smelling a lot worse than I do, and if we wait much longer, so much of our reek will be in our clothes that we’ll attract beasts—and stingflies—just as readily as if we blew war horns with our every step.”
“I stink?”
“Yes.”
“I see,” Narantha said icily. “And just how do you expect me to w
ash in … that?”
“Take off your clothes, sit down there—there’s a sandbar under the water, see?—to scoop up sand, and scrub yourself with it. Stings a bit, but you’ll be done soon enough, and I’ll crush some ardanthe sap into your hair. It has a nice smell.”
“And how will I dry myself?”
Florin pointed up at the sun then through the trees at a large boulder. “Lie down on that and bake until you’re dry enough to get dressed.”
“While you leer and look. And you seriously expect me to do that?”
“I hold no expectations, Lady, but I’ve been given to understand that many nobles of our realm are from time to time sensible. I’m hoping you’re one of them.”
Eyes flaming, Narantha clenched her fists and stepped up nose to nose with him—she had to look up to do it, which made her even more furious, and she was already seething. “Do you know who I am, knave? Do you know who I am?”
Florin’s blue-gray eyes bored into hers. “Lady, increasingly I am learning what you are: a bone-idle, arrogant, spoiled chit of a girl. You seem to spend most of your labor in tirades and cursings, berating me because you find fault with my service—the service I tender out of kindness and my duty to the realm, not out of any obligation to you, or coin-hire. There’s an expression about ‘only a leucrotta being crazed enough to bite the hand that feeds it.’ Well, Lady, you’re a leucrotta.”
“How dare you speak to me so! Why, if it weren’t for the nobility—nobles like me—Cormyr would be all backcountry louts starving and grubbing in the dirt, bedding their sisters and mothers and having no law but that of the fist, and no tongue but gruntings! How dare you!?”
“Someone should have dared, long ago, and done so as often as it took to break you of this serenely wrong view of the ways of the world. Hear this, Narantha, and hear it well: Faerûn is not going to change to your will. Either you must change to dwell in it, or it will break you.”
Florin slid his pack off his shoulder and added, “You’ve been doing this for so long that your tirades are almost a habit: the way you always deal with anything that displeases you. Count yourself favored of Tymora that I’m not the backcountry lout you see all of us common folk as—or I’d have silenced you forever with the back of my hand, or at least until you woke up with your head still ringing, and started crawling around looking for your lost teeth. We are schooled and taught courtesies, we commoners, and one of them is never to hit a woman—for women are the nurturers who keep families strong and therefore the realm strong. However, just now, my schooling is on the very sword-edge of slipping.”
Falling abruptly silent, Florin whirled around and stalked away to the stream, tearing off his clothes as he went.
Leaving Narantha staring at his back, open-mouthed.
His bare back. She blinked.
She closed her mouth, firmly, and turned her head away. How dare he speak thus! Why did he refuse to know his place, and keep to it? Why—
She looked toward the stream, and hastily turned away again. Gods, he was using sand.
She shuddered, tramped to the high boulder, and started watching for beasts. Ones that weren’t wet and hairy, and cheerfully sporting right over there in the stream.
Chapter 7
TO LOVE CORMYR
Far from being a traitor, I do love Cormyr. Deeply. Which is why I intend to raise an army and go back to the fair Forest Kingdom, slaughter every last Obarskyr, war wizard, king’s lord, and Purple Dragon in it, and claim every stride of its soil as my own.
Sorn Merendil
The Obarsk yrs Must Die (pamphlet)
published in the Year of Moonfall
Ready?”
Jhessail nodded, and Islif brought the cudgel forward from her shoulder in a hard, fast throw that sent it end-over-end across the meadow, to crash down into the midst of the tangle of briars.
As expected, a rabbit shot forth, racing like the wind. Jhessail murmured, pointed, and a vivid blue bolt of magic lashed out, racing arrow-swift—
The rabbit changed direction, very swiftly. In a few moments it would zag again, then stop to—
Just as sharply, the magic missile turned in the air to follow its racing quarry—and lanced home.
The bunny turned a cartwheel in the air and thudded back to earth, where it lay still.
“Rose of Moander!” Islif gasped, growing a broad grin. “You did it!”
Jhessail’s answering cry was lost in a sudden chorus of barks and bays. Over the shoulder of the meadow came an all-too-familiar torrent of teeth and loping legs and burr-bedecked, flea-ridden coats. Hearing their voices, though they weren’t on Estle land, Belkur Estle had loosed his dogs.
Islif growled her annoyance and ran for her cudgel.
Jhessail took an uncertain step back—then stepped forward again, looking determined. She had but the one missile, but if she could down Old One-Eye, their leader, the others might well draw off in confusion.
Or so she hoped.
Islif waded into briars, cursing, but turned as One-Eye’s rising growl of menace suddenly turned into a yelp—and just as suddenly fell silent, as if cut off by a knife.
Or a spell.
The lead dog of Estle’s pack, it seemed, would never be a belligerent terror in the Esparran fields again.
The others were barking furiously at Jhessail—but they were doing so stiff-legged, leaping back and forth in a line of not-daring that confronted her, their headlong charge broken.
Islif laid hands on her cudgel and burst out of the briars in a roaring charge of her own.
To the dogs, she was a familiar foe, and they had bruises and stiffnesses of broken ribs a-plenty to remind them of her prowess. Their barkings rose higher and more fearful, marking their hasty retreat.
“Well done!” Doust called in cheerful greeting, as he and Semoor came out of Rorth Urtree’s woodlot together.
“Ah, the two holy men. Arriving just too late to be useful, as usual,” Islif replied. “Saw you the spells?”
“Of course. We’re foolish, not blind. Shall we start a fire to cook the bunny, or did Jhess’s spell cook it for us?”
Islif reached for her belt knife. “We’ll have to find out. Yet, look you, we can be true adventurers now: We have our wizard!”
“True adventurers,” Jhessail echoed thoughtfully as they gathered around her. “I wonder where Florin is?”
“Mother Mielikki, that feels better!” Florin said, stretching. Water pattered on leaves as he clambered onto the boulder. His rippling muscles were magnificent, and he gave Narantha a bright smile as he joined her.
She broke off staring at him and looked away quickly, blushing.
“Your turn,” he announced, and when she looked up at him again, she discovered he’d assumed a hero’s pose: exact mimicry of the balled fists and sternly lifted chin of the famous statue of King Dhalmass Surveying The Realm. Oh, yes, there was supposed to be a copy of it on Espar’s village green, wasn’t there?
The effect was hilarious, and she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling. Florin moved one eye sidelong to give her a wink, and she looked away again, knowing he could see her suppressing her mirth.
When she looked back at him this time, their gazes met, and she blushed a deep scarlet, but kept her eyes on his and asked curiously, “That scar on your hand; how came you by it?”
“Dragon breath. Back when I was young, I was foolish—rather than the wise elder of the realm I am now. A caravan merchant had a pet red dragon he was taking to sell in Sembia, where the real fools live. It was about the size of a large dog—a wolfhound—and I made the mistake of trying to pet it.”
“What?”
“You’re terribly fond of that word. What merchant? What dragon? What happened next? Or d’you mean ‘I can’t believe you’?”
Narantha stared at him. “I … I guess I really mean ‘I don’t believe it.’ No one—no one’s ever talked to me as you do.”
Florin dropped his pose and stood casually faci
ng her. “And are you going to have me horsewhipped for it, when we reach Espar?”
“No.” She looked at the ground, and said almost petulantly, “You must think I’m some sort of dragon. I—” Almost reluctantly, she looked up again. “No, of cour—no, I’m not.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Your turn in the Dathyl; ’tis not exactly warm, but it’ll be colder later on.”
Narantha looked at the forester thoughtfully, as if judging him, then blurted out, “Don’t stop doing it. Even when I scream at you. Please. You’re like the older brother I’ve never had.”
Florin smiled. “Have my thanks, Narantha. Those words are … nice to hear.” He reached out to pat her shoulder, and said not a word when she flinched away from him.
Swallowing, she deliberately stepped forward again to meet his hand.
“So,” Florin asked lightly, unhooking the catch of her weathercloak, “will you let your older brother help wash your hair?”
Horaundoon frowned over his scrying orb. The hargaunt belled questioningly.
Without taking his eyes off the glowing orb, the Zhentarim replied, “Echoes. I’ve never felt echoes before. I wonder …”
He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “They could just be wards, or detection spells responding to my magic … or they could be something more dangerous.”
Horaundoon went on staring into the orb. The hargaunt trilled and chimed again, but he made no reply.
“He knows,” Horaundoon said suddenly, one of his hands closing into a fist. “The elf knows my magic is drifting into his mantle. He keeps looking over … ah, there it is. A scepter of some sort, probably his strongest battle-magic. Yet he casts nothing, makes no adjustments to his mantle at all. Restless, though, as if he wants to. Yes, he’s itching to. So why the echoes, if he’s not—?”
His eyes narrowed, and he scratched at his jaw as if at an agonizing itch. “Once my spell conquers the focal gem and the spellstealing begins, the link back to me is strong. Yet if I hold back from the gem, and trace all spells linked to it, I should be able to see if our elf mage has some waiting friends.”
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