Realms of Mystery a-6

by Elaine Cunningham

  “That brings to mind the solemn question upon which the future of fair Cormyr stands,” Lord Battlebar boomed. “Who among us shall rise, and who fall, if Azoun-gods preserve and keep our king-should die tomorrow?”

  The three Flowers groaned in unison as Shamril spread her hands in a disgusted “I told you so” gesture. “Shall we be off after Crimmon?” she hissed. “They’ll be at this all night, given wine enough! I…”

  “No,” Lady Lathdue said with a dangerous smile, laying a hand on Shamril’s arm. “No running away now! We’ve a wager, remember? I want to see our fathers’ faces when we make a play not for Crimmon, but for his father! Where will they look? After all, the Baron as son-in-law- albeit one old enough to sire them-gives them more power at court, and a shorter wait for the gold, if they can bend him into parting with coins before Crimmon does, or the grave takes him!”

  “The wager was for the most daring way to steal a kiss from old Eskult,” Chalass reminded her with a frown. “I don’t want to cross my father! He’ll half flail the flesh off my behind if I disgr…”

  “In front of our fathers is the most daring way!” Shamril said with sudden enthusiasm. “Ladies, watch me!” She strode away through the maze, catching up her gown to unconcernedly step over walls of highthorn and catch up with the four lords. Chalass and Lathdue stared at her progress with mingled apprehension, awe, and delight.

  “She’s going to do it,” Lathdue said in low tones, as if pronouncing doom fast coming down upon them all. “Oh, gods above.”

  It was coming down to full night now, but the lamps gave light enough to clearly show what befell at the heart of the maze. They saw Shamril glide past Battlebar and her own father, duck under Lord Huntingdown’s arm. Lathdue erupted in swiftly-smothered giggles at the look of horrified astonishment on her father’s face at the swj den, bobbing appearance of a young lady clad in a very scanty green silk gown from under his own languidly-waving arm-and come up to Lord Eskult Paertrover.

  The Baron of Starwater chuckled at whatever Shamril said then, and proffered his arm with exaggerated gallantry. Rather than surrendering her own arm, the young Lady Shamril spun past the old lord’s hand to press herself against him, lace-cloaked breast to medal-adorned chest, and thigh to thigh. Lord Eskult looked surprised, but pleasantly so. His teeth flashed in a smile as she raised her lips, obviously demanding a kiss, and he bent over her as if he was a young brightblade, and not an old and red-faced baron of the realm.

  Chalass bit her knuckle to keep from screaming in delight as Shamril stretched her white throat a trembling inch or two farther, ignoring a sudden startled oath from her father. Lathdue shook her head, murmuring, “Crimmon should be watching this! His father’s got more than a bit of the old fire in his veins yet, I…”

  A sharp snapping sound echoed through the soft evening air, followed by the vicious hum of a crossbow bolt snarling through the air toward the two trembling bodies. It seemed to leap out of the gloomy air like a bolt of black lightning, stabbing between old lord and young, playful lady.

  Blood burst forth in a sudden, wet torrent as the bolt took Shamril through the throat. Hair danced as her head spun around with a horrible loose wobble. The Flower of House Farrowbrace made a bubbling sound- the last sound she’d ever utter-as the bolt hummed On across the garden, plucking her out of the old lord’s grasp to fall sprawled across the highthorn, a limp and bloody bundle.

  Eskult stared at his own empty hands for an instant, blinded by the bright blood that was fountaining everywhere-and then clutched at his chest, made a sound that was half roar and half sob, and toppled slowly, like a felled tree, to crash down on his face in the highthorn.

  There was an instant of shocked and disbelieving stillness before the shouts and screams began. With one accord, everyone present turned to stare at where the bolt must have been fired from-and the shouts were cut off as if by a sword. Stunned silence returned.

  A head could be seen above the weaponless, otherwise deserted stretch of garden wall they were all staring at. It looked for all the world as if it had just risen up from behind the wall to peer at the carnage below in grinning satisfaction. Teeth flashed white and fierce in its chalk-white face, luminous beneath the dark helm it wore. The Grinning Ghost of Taverton Hall was smiling again.

  It grinned at them over the garden wall for the space of two of Lathdue’s long and quivering breaths before it abruptly sank from view behind the wall. As if that had been a signal, folk stirred all around the sunken garden. There was a ragged roar, and then servants and bodyguards were sprinting toward the wall, swords and belt knives out. Even Lord Battlebar, down in the maze, plucked at his own knife and crashed across the highthorn in a lumbering run.

  Chalass and Lathdue, white-faced, could only stare in silent horror. However fierce and grim the pursuit was now, as men converged on the garden wall in a frantic rush, it was too late for Shamril Her daring was stilled forever. It might well also be too late for Lord Eskult Paertrover.

  Chalass sagged soundlessly to her knees, staring at the two bodies as servants hurried to kneel over them, but Lathdue sobbed suddenly and loudly, and spun around to sprint after the rushing bodyguards. That crossbow had been fired from just where they’d seen the ghost, and…

  Panting, she charged up the stair from the sunken gar den and turned at its head, almost falling in her haste. A hand in livery caught her arm to steady her, and she swallowed, gasped for breath, and fell silent again.

  There was no sign of the Grinning Ghost of Taverton Hall. A grim ring of men with drawn steel in their hands stood around the spot where the crossbow had been fired from. It dangled, string loose now, in the hands of Lord Crimmon Paertrover. His sword glittered in his other hand, beneath a face that was white and empty. His eyes stared past Lath due, unseeing.

  “Everyone I love…taken from me,” he blurted-and fell forward on his face, even faster than the rough hands that snatched away his blade and caught at his arms. As half Faerun rushed down on the young lord, Lathdue felt a deeper darkness than night rise up around her, and close its merciful grasp over her eyes.

  “Any man may say he has business with Lord Paertrover. To gain entry here, many a beggar and old soldier has said as much. His friend and secret business partner you may be, too…but I know you not.”

  The old seneschal’s voice was cold, his stare as wintry as a blizzard howling across the Stonelands, but the man across the table from him smiled with easy affability and replied, “Neither do I know you, goodman, but has that ever been a barrier between men of goodwill? You have the look of a retired Purple Dragon, and I respect all who’ve fought to keep our fair land safe. Might I know your name?”

  “Greiryn,” the bristle-browed man on the far side of the table said shortly. “Seneschal of Taverton Hail.”

  The stout man with the shaggy sideburns bounded from his seat to stretch a welcoming hand across the tabletop, for all the world as if he were the host, and not the visitor. “Glarasteer Rhauligan, dealer in turret tops and spires,” he boomed. “No embattlement too small, no embrasure too large, no crenellation too eccentric. If you can draw it, I can build it! I’ve come from bustling Suzail herself, turning my back on insistent barons and eager knights alike, to keep my appointment with the Lord Eskult Paertrover.” He gestured imperiously with the hand that Greiryn had been ignoring, and added firmly, “I do have an appointment.”

  “Saw you the black banner?” the seneschal asked, in grim and reluctant tones. Rhauligan shrugged in a “no, but what of it?” gesture, and Greiryn said icily, “My Lord lies dead in the family crypt, of heartstop, and won’t be seeing anyone. Good day to you, merchant.”

  The fat man in silks and furs made another imperious gesture, more hastily this time. “His son, then,” Rhauligan said eagerly, “the young blade who makes half the ladies in Cormyr swoon, and the rest sigh! He’ll be Lord Paertrover now, right?”

  “If he lives to take any title,” Greiryn replied in tones of doom that w
ere almost drowned out by the sudden blare of a hunting horn sounding from the gates.

  He rose at the sound, reaching for his cloak. “You must excuse me-that will be a Wizard of War, sent from Suzail to see to Lord Crimmon’s fate.”

  The royal arms gleamed on the door of the coach even through the swirling road-dust. Rhauligan counted no less than sixteen black horses in its harness, stamping and tossing their heads impatiently as that regal door opened, and a man in stylish robes of lush purple alighted.

  The servant with the hunting horn blew a too-loud, wandering-note flourish, and the newcomer didn’t trouble to hide his wince and frown. He extended his left hand in a fist, displaying a ring to the already-bowing seneschal, and snapped his fingers.

  In answer to this signal, a servant still hastening out of the coach declaimed grandly, “All hail and make welcome Lord Jalanus Westerbotham, Scepter of Justice, Dragonfang Lord Investigator for Northbank, Starwater, and the Western Coast!”

  The figure in purple inclined his head in coldly distant greeting to the three noble lords, swept past them and their daughters, ignored Rhauligan and a hastily-arrayed lineup of household servants, and strode toward the pillared entry of Taverton Hall. The seneschal practically sprinted to catch up with him, holding his ceremonial sword at one hip. Rhauligan gave Greiryn a cheerful grin as he puffed past, and was rewarded with a fierce scowl.

  “Lord Jalanus!” the seneschal gasped, trying to smile, “be welcome indeed in Taverton Hall. A sad occasion calls you here, but I’m sure that your stay flee…”

  “Where, man, are my quarters?” the war wizard demanded, in tones that Rhauligan promptly (and privately) dubbed “coldly patrician.”

  “Ah, we’ve prepared the Ducal Suite for you, milord,” Greiryn said, waving a hand down the central hallway. “It’s just ahead there; that door where the servants are waiting.”

  “I must see to its suitability, and theirs,” Lord Jalanus said in a voice that managed to combine equal parts irritation at having to deal with dunderheads and gloomy anticipation of personal hardship and disappointment to come. He drew a slim, shiny black wand from his belt with a flourish, and marched off down the hail.

  His servants streamed after him, pushing past Glarasteer Rhauligan on both sides. The merchant staggered first to the left and then to the right under their bruising impacts, and then shrugged and thrust out his foot, sending a heavily-laden servant crashing onto his face. Deftly he snatched up two carrychests from the chaos that had been the servant’s high-stacked load, and joined the general rush down the hall. A ragged shout followed him, and as he turned to enter the Ducal Suite, an angry hand plucked at his sleeve.

  “Hey, now, you…”

  “Come, come, man,” Rhauligan said grandly, “make yourself useful. Lord Wetterbottom seems to have brought no end of clobber with him up the short road from Suzail. Stir yourself to carry some of it, as I have!”

  “You…”

  Greiryn’s face swung into view, lit with fury, and over his shoulder looked Lord Jalanus, boredom and withering scorn now vying for supremacy on his features.

  “Merchant!” the seneschal snapped, “surrender those chests at once! I’ll have you thrown out of the Hall-with coach whips! — if you aren’t gone by the time our esteemed guest is settled! Do you hear?”

  “Along with everyone in southern Cormyr,” Rhauligan murmured mildly, extending his arms and dropping both chests on the highly-polished toes of Greiryn’s best boots, “But to hear, I fear, is not always to obey.”

  “It is, among servants at court,” the war wizard sneered as Immult Greiryn uttered a strangled shriek, bending over to clutch at his toes.

  Rhauligan gave him a broad smile. “That’s not what Vangey-oh, the Lord Vangerdahast to you, no doubt-is always complaining to me. Why…”

  “Guards!” roared the seneschal. “Arrest this man! He…”

  “Will go quite quietly, once this is all settled and I can keep my appointment with the surviving Lord Paertrover,” Rhauligan said, stepping swiftly back against a wall as the heavy clump of hastening boots rang down the hallway. “I must be present when Wetterbottom here listens to all the evidence, and goes with his spells to interroer, interview my future client.”

  “Oh?”

  The war wizard put out an imperious hand to silence Greiryn and push him aside, and his tones were silky as he advanced to face the stout merchant nose to nose, bringing his other hand up with slow menace to show the entire hallway of staring guards and servants the ornate and heavy rings that gleamed and glittered on his fingers. “By what bold right, man, do you make such insistence?”

  Glarasteer Rhauligan smiled easily and reached into the open front of his loose shirt.

  “Before you do anything rash,” Lord Jalanus added quickly, “I must remind you that there are laws in fair Cormyr, and I, ‘Wetterbottom’ or not, am sworn to uphold them. I need no court to mete out final-fatal-justice.” One of the rings he wore flashed once, warningly.

  “Your slumbers must be troubled,” Rhauligan replied in tones of gentle pity, as he slowly drew forth something small and silver on a chain, holding it cupped in his hand for only the wizard and Greiryn to see. It was a rounded silver harp: the badge of a Harper. “I have also come here from Suzail,” the merchant told them softly, and leaned forward to add in a very loud whisper, “and I was sent by someone very highly placed in court.”

  The war wizard’s eyes flickered, and he spun around with an angry flourish. “Admit him to my investigations,” he snapped at the seneschal-and then wheeled around again to add curtly to Rhauligan, “Cross not my authority in the smallest way. Your presence I’ll grant, but you are to be silent and refrain from meddling. Understand?”

  Rhauligan spread his hands. “Your words are clarity and simplicity itself.”

  Lord Jalanus glared at him for a long moment, sensed nothing more was forthcoming, and turned on his heel again without another word. The merchant favored his retreating back with a florid court bow that made one of the servants snigger. Greiryn’s head snapped up to glare-but the culprit, whoever it was, lurked somewhere in the stone faced ranks of the wizard’s own servants, not the folk of the Hall.

  Rhauligan smiled fondly at him. “As Lord Wetterbottorn seems to need the entire Ducal Suite, could you open the Royal Rooms for me? Hmmm?”

  The seneschal’s hands came up like trembling claws, reaching for Rhauligan’s throat, before more prudent thought stilled them. More anonymous titters were heard-and this time, some of them came from the servants of the Hall.

  “The day,” Rhauligan remarked to the world at large, as he strode off down the hallway, “does not seem to be proceeding well for seneschals, does it?”

  “But he must have done it!” Greiryn protested. “We all saw him holding the bow! T-the string was still quivering!”

  “My spells,” Lord Jalanus said icily, “do not lie. Lord Crimmon is innocent.”

  “I–I quite understand,” the seneschal said hastily. “I didn’t mean to doubt you! It’s just so… so bewildering. Who can have done it, then?”

  “Bolyth,” the war wizard snapped, turning to the mountainous Purple Dragon who always lurked at his elbow, “have the gates closed immediately. Post guards; I want this estate sealed. Seneschal, reveal unto me, as soon as your wits allow, who-if anyone-has left this house since the deaths.” He rose in a swirl of doth-of-gold and claret-hued velvet oversleeves, his third change of garments in as many hours.

  “I-but of course,” Greiryn agreed, almost babbling. “There can’t be all that many. We’re not like the Dales here, with Elminster flitting in and out like some great night bat!”

  Behind them both, a suit of armor in the corner blurred momentarily. Rhauligan saw it become a white-bearded man in robes, wink at him, and wave cheerily. He winked back, just before the armor became simply armor again.

  Oblivious to this visitation, the seneschal was babbling on, clearly shaken at the thought of his young lord
master’s innocence. Now that was interesting in itself… “Uh, great Lord Justice,” Greiryn interrupted himself, “where’re you going now?”

  “To question the bodies, of course,” the war wizard snapped, drawing out a wand that was fully three feet long, and seemed to be made entirely of polished and fused human finger bones. “They rarely have much of value to impart, but-his procedure…”

  “…and we are all slaves to procedure,” Rhauligan told the ceiling gently, completing the court saying. At the doorway, the striding war wizard stopped, stiffened, and then surged into motion again, sweeping out of the room without a word.

  “I answer to my Lord Eskult,” the old man said shortly, “not to you.”

  Lord Jalanus drew himself up, eyes glittering. His nose quivered with embottled fury, and he fairly spat out the words, “Do you know who I am, puling worm?”

  The head gardener spat thoughtfully down into the rushes at their feet, shifted his chew to the other cheek, and said contemptuously, “Aye, the sort of miserable excuse for a war wizard that’s all Cormyr can muster from the younglings these days. You’d not have been allowed across the threshold of the Royal Court in my day. I guarded those doors for the good of the realm-and turned back from them far, far better men than you.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, leaving the Lord Justice snarling with incoherent rage in his wake.

  “Clap that man in chains!” Jalanus Westerbotham howled, as soon as he could master words again. Two Purple Dragons started obediently away from their stations along the walls-only to come to uncertain halts as the stout merchant, moving with apparent laziness, somehow got to the doorway and filled it…with one hand on the hilt of a blade that looked well-used and sturdy, and which hadn’t been in evidence before.

  “The Lord spoke in empty hyperbole,” Rhauligan told the armsmen, “not meaning you to take his words literally. He knows very well that imprisoning a veteran of the Purple Dragons-and a close friend of the king at that, from the days when Azoun was a boy prince- merely for insisting that he be questioned with due courtesy, would be excessive. When word of such a serious lack of judgment reached the ears of Vangerdahast, even a Scepter of Justice would have to be hasty in his explanations…and no such haste would save him, if the King learned of the matter. After all, what is more valuable to the realm than a loyal, long-serving Purple Dragon? You’d know that better than most, goodmen, eh?”