Fully awake and quivering with curiosity, Sophraea threw open the casement and leaned out of the window. Wind blew her black curls into her eyes. With an impatient shake of her head, she peered down into the back courtyard. Far below, she heard a metallic rattling. Someone or something was trying to enter through the Dead End gate. The strange glow shone directly beneath her but on the graveyard side of the wall.
High above it and invisible in the dark night, Sophraea tried to make out what the light was. Could it be someone holding a lantern? Was there some unusually intrepid thief attempting the family gate?
The clattering at the gate stopped. The wind died down and, for a moment, Sophraea thought she heard another sound, the rise, and fall of an eerie wail. Then the light winked out.
Sophraea watched for a few minutes more, but another gust of icy rain convinced her to slam the window closed.
Thoroughly chilled and shivering, Sophraea dived beneath her blankets. She wondered if she should tell her parents about the strange lights around the gate. But it is probably nothing, reasoned Sophraea, nothing at all to worry about. And that odd noise at the end, the noise that sounded so much like a woman sobbing, that was just the wind, Sophraea told herself firmly as she buried her head a little deeper under the pillows.
The next morning, Sophraea woke to the usual sound of big male relatives banging down the stairs of the Dead End House. Bump, crash, thump, that would be Leaplow two floors below doing his usual dive down the south staircase toward the kitchen. Rattle, slam, shouts, that would be Bentnor and his twin Cadriffle racing along the west staircase to snatch a bite to eat before joining their father in the coffin workshop.
The City of the Dead appeared to be its usual damp tangle of winter bare bushes and trees in the gray light of a cloudy morning. The rain-darkened roofs of the mausoleums showed as black squares amid the shrubbery. Peering from her window, Sophraea could not see anything unusual. The past night's disturbances had left no obvious mark upon the grounds.
One of the family's multitude of black and white cats strolled along the top of the wall separating the City of the Dead from the Carver's courtyard.
As she laced her favorite velvet vest with a new ribbon, Sophraea could not stop thinking about the strange ball of light that had floated through the graveyard.
Later, after arriving at the family kitchen, she received a flurry of instructions from her mother whisking breakfast on and off the table as fast as the men could gobble their bread. A lighter stream of chatter gushed forth from her aunts, also dancing around their large sons and their wives, as they teased the family's newest daughter-in-law, a pretty Henndever girl who was still a new enough bride to blush at the aunts' jokes and her husband's embarrassed shrugs and grins.
But the Henndever bride grinned just as broadly as the rest when her harassed husband finally grabbed her, kissed her soundly to the accompaniment of the aunts' sighs, and clattered down the stairs to work.
Sophraea's sensible father and equally staid uncles were long gone, already busy in their workshops. With her mother obviously distracted by the bustle of beginning the day, she stayed silent about the strange light that she had seen in the graveyard.
Somewhere in Waterdeep, Sophraea mused as the morning wore on, there were battles being fought across rooftops, intrigues being plotted in shadowy taverns, and clandestine assignations being made in perfumed bedrooms. But here, in her courtyard, there was laundry. Basket after basket of laundry filled with the enormous shirts and pants needed to cover a Carver male.
With the rain blown out to sea for the moment, Reye asked her daughter to get the laundry hung. Certainly flapping in the backyard was a better choice than draped over the backs of chairs in front of the kitchen fire or strung along the curved staircase banisters, the usual method of drying indoors during the wettest months.
A whistle sounded behind her as Sophraea struggled to fling the dripping trousers of her brother Runewright over the line. Spinning around, Sophraea saw a tall, thin man come slouching through their public gate that opened onto the alley leading to Zendulth Street.
Dressed in faded tan leathers from head to toe, the young man, and he looked only a year or two older than herself, bore a general air of brownness, the brown of new wood or the fawn of autumn leaves. His hair was a medium brown, his close-trimmed beard was a darker brown, even the long sharp nose and high cheekbones were tanned a travelers' brown. The only spark of. color in his face and figure was a pair of extraordinarily bright green eyes shining below dark lashes long enough to be the envy of any girl.
"I was told I could find a stonecarver here," said the thin brown man.
"Monument, marker, gravestone, or statue?"
"Statue, please," he answered with a quick smile. "Do you do all the rest?"
"My uncles build the monuments and do the fine stone ornaments and my cousins engrave markers in bronze or marble. My brothets can cut a coffin to fit you in less than a day, but that's wood and not stone for most folks. My father carves the best statues," Sophraea explained. She pointed out her father's workshop, third door on her left facing into the yard. "You'll find him there."
The young man nodded but seemed rooted to where he was, staying in the courtyard to watch her toss one of Leaplow's shirts over the line.
"And are you a Carver too?" he asked.
Sophraea threw Bentnor's second best tunic on the line before answering. "I'm Sophraea Carver, but I'm no stoneworker if that's what you are asking."'
She dived into the basket to pull out another set of wet pants, the left knee sporting a large hole, which meant patching would be needed. If it wasn't patching, it was darning. There was always sewing to do, but never the sort she liked. Since the young man showed no signs of shifting from under her clotheslines, she repeated, "My father is the one you want to see. Third door, where I showed you."
"Actually, I'm quite fond of the view from where I am," he replied with a wink and a grin as the stiff breeze whistling into the yard plastered Sophraea's skirts against her legs and tugged loose her dark curls. "My name is Gustin Bone, in case you were wishing to know."
"Not particularly," Sophraea answered with an ease of practice borne of shopping expeditions into Waterdeep's markets.
As she had grown older, more than one young man unacquainted with the size and sheer numbers of her male relatives had tried to flirt with her. Sophraea never minded the flirting, but it did get tiresome to see her cousins, her brothers, and even the occasional uncle take a young man for "a pleasant walk" around the City of the Dead to explain the family's closeness and their natural concern for the only Carver daughter.
This young man might be as tall as some of her cousins, but he lacked the breadth to go with the height. Thin as a spear and shoulders bent with a scholar's slouch, Sophraea doubted this one would ever speak to her again after even the shortest stroll with Leaplow or Runewright.
Since Gustin Bone's feet seemed stuck to the cobblestones under his boots, Sophraea used- a trick that usually caused her male relatives to disappear like smoke up one of Dead End House's crooked chimneys.
"I could use some help," she said, indicating the nearest overflowing laundry basket. "Perhaps you could hang those shirts."
"I'm not one for physical labor," Gustin Bone stated without moving. "But thank you for the offer."
"Come along then, you might as well bother my father instead of me," Sophraea said, marching over to the door of her father's workshop and rapping on it with a brisk knock. The top half of the door swung open and her father's bushy bearded face peered out. "There's a man here to see you about a statue."
"Weeping goddess or shieidbearer or infant sleeping?" asked Astute Carver, leaning on the lower half of the door.
"Is that all you do?" asked Gustin Bone.
"I can carve anything you want," said Astute. "But those arc the most popular for monuments. The first for lost lovers, the second for fallen warriors, and the third. Ah, the third is for the heartbroke
n parents and always the saddest of the lot to carve."
"I need someone to carve me a hero," said Gustin Bone.
"Any particular one?"
"No, just a stone man of heroic aspect. Taller, bigger, broader than ordinary men, a great paladin like the old stories," said Gustin. "And make him as lifelike as possible."
"Creases in his clothing and those wrinkles that paladins get from squinting at enemies on the distant horizon?" speculated Astute.
"Oh excellent. As real as you can make him!"
"I could even give him pores in his skin. By the time that I'm done, there's more than one who will wonder if he's simply sleeping or waiting to draw his next breath."
"Wonderful," said Gustin reaching across the half door to clap Astute's shoulder. "Absolutely what I need."
Astute straightened up and looked over the young man, a long speculative look that Sophraea had seen him use before.
"What I need," Astute finally replied in the careful drawl of a Waterdeep man who knew the importance of remuneration, "is money to pay for the stone and for my labor."
"Certainly, certainly," said Gustin, producing a thin brown leather pouch from the front of his tunic. He dropped it into Astute's broad palm.
"A trifle light," said Astute.
"A partial payment only, saer," promised Gustin. "The rest will be coming soon. A day or two to make my arrangements."
Then the surprising young man grabbed Sophraea's hand and bowed over it with a smile. "Pleasure, truly a pleasure," he said. Those wickedly long lashes blinked, momentarily hiding his extraordinary green eyes. "I'm sorry that I cannot stay longer."
A little popping sound filled the courtyard. The young man grinned again at Sophraea, bowed elaborately toward her father, and then sprinted for the public gate.
"Fish guts and torn garters!" exclaimed Sophraea. "What was that all about?"
"Language, my girl!" said Astute.
"I didn't say anything bad," protested Sophraea.
Astute shook his bearded head. "Ew, girl, you know how your mother feels about outbursts like that."
"Bad enough that your brothers can't keep polite tongues in their heads," sang Sophraea. "But surely you can act more like a lady."
Astute chuckled at her perfect mimicry of Reyes most recent and constant scold.
Another gust of wind tugged at Sophraea's skirts and remembering the full baskets of laundry, she turned back to the lines. But all the baskets were empty and all the laundry was neatly hung, wafting back and forth as it dried. A pale glow outlined each item, slowly fading away even as Sophraea stared.
Sophraea could feel her mouth hanging open, snapped it shut, and then looked over her shoulder at her father.
"A very surprising young man," observed Astute with a chuckle at his daughter's astonishment. "I think he liked you. Perhaps I should have a little talk with him when he comes back."
"Don't bother," said Sophraea with a firm shake of her head. "But I do have something to tell you."
Putting thoughts of the brown lad firmly out of her head, Sophraea started to tell her father about last night's light in the graveyard, but the heavy clopping of hooves outside the street gate interrupted her. A jingle of harness signaled that a coach had stopped outside their public entrance.
"Ah," sighed Astute, "I forgot that he was coming today. Go get your uncles. He'll want all of us to wait on him."
From the heavy frown that marred Astute's usually mild expression, Sophraea didn't need to ask who to announce to her uncles. Only one man annoyed the family so completely, but was also so rich as to be impossible to turn away. Obviously, Rampage Stunk was about to give the Carvers another set of orders about his mausoleum.
Sophraea sped to each door of her uncles' workshops, banging on them loudly to be heard over the hammering and sawing inside. One by one, her uncles popped their heads out of the doors. An aunt or two appeared at the windows overlooking the courtyard.
"It's Stunk," Sophraea called to them.
"I hope he left his hairy brute of a servant behind," she muttered to herself.
TWO
In Waterdeep, a city that lived and died by gossip. Rampage Stunk somehow discouraged speculation about the size and extent of his fortune. His personal wealth, like his stomach, was known to be much larger than the ordinary man's and that seemed to be the extent of others' knowledge of Rampage Stunk's business.
Sophraea found him an unpleasant man. Something about the way he thrust himself forward, his stiff black hair looking as if it had been dipped in ink and then slicked down with grease, his head always cocked at an angle on his shoulders as if listening for gossip about others. Even the heavy tread of his peculiar swaying walk seemed to state that here was a man who did not mind crushing those beneath him.
Stunk strode into the yard as he had many times before, as if he expected everyone to move out of his way, swinging his arms with his hands curled into meaty fists. With no regard for courtesy, he bulled his way past her waiting uncles and Sophraea's other relatives.
As usual, a retinue of servants trailed after the fat man from the North Ward. Besides being one of the most cutthroat of negotiators, it was said that Stunk also was quicker to take offense than most men, often seeing an insult in the most innocent "remark and not at all reluctant to retaliate with force. Certainly, wherever he went, he took a host of unpleasant types with him, all of whom were always ready for a fight.
Stunk stopped in front of Astute Carver, shifting a little from side to side as was his habit. He thrust forward a scroll, the greasy marks of his hands clear on the parchment.
"The pediment was too plain," he said. "I made some changes. It is much better now."
Astute Carver took the scroll from his client with a stifled sigh. Some months before, Stunk had commissioned a large memorial for the remains of his long-dead mother and, as needed, his other family members.
Eventually, Stunk planned to occupy the center sarcophagus, a creation of his own design. Every month or so, he visited the Carvers, adding details to the work. Currently he favored a barrel-design tomb set to one side to hold the bones of "lesser family members" as he called them; two pedestals to hold the urns for the ashes of his mother and, eventually, his still living wife; a colonnade of ornamented pillars surrounding his own resting place; and a number of other stone ornaments scattered about to memorialize his self-claimed attributes and achievements.
It was, in the words of Sophraea's uncle Perspicacity, "quite the most florid and horrid design ever to be visited upon us." Her other uncles Judicious, Vigilant, and Sagacious had all rumbled their agreement.
However, Stunk was willing to pay for his folly, as Astute reminded his brothers, and the family never turned down a good commission.
Work progressed slowly. So far, only certain ornamental pieces such as funerary urns had been completed as Stunk tinkered with his design, but those two pieces alone were large enough to fill one whole room in the basement of Dead End House. Stunk's mother still rested in her original plot in Coinscoifin, the merchants' graveyard, and Stunk seemed more concerned about getting his eventual monument carved to his satisfaction than moving the old lady.
Sophraea suspected Stunk's only motivation for his plans to bury his family near him was to be assured of a crowd of sycophants to surround him in death as they did in life.
Fidgeting on the edge of the crowd of younger Carvers waiting for the business to conclude, Sophraea noticed that Stunk's current retinue contained the glowering brute who was said to be his bodyguard, the pale and sneering manservant with the six knives clearly sheathed around his person, the two young red-haired louts with the scarred hands and the flattened noses of dockyard bullies, and the hairy man in the livery of a doorjack who always hung at the back of the group.
The last man had a bestial cast to his face, a mid-day scruff of dark beard and greasy lank curls doing little to hide his generally unpleasant visage. As always, the hairy one turned toward Sophraea and sniffed
the air in her direction. His pink tongue darted out and licked his chapped lips. Then he smiled at her.
Sophraea shuddered. There was a man that she would be happy to have her brothers walk through the City of the'Dead and drop into the nearest open grave. Maybe even throw a little dirt on top of him.
"They get uglier every tenday, don't they?" whispered Leaplow to his sister. "Where does Stunk find his servants? Wonder if we could beat them in a fair fight?"
Although slightly older than herself, Leaplow often seemed far younger, at least in Sophraea's opinion. Like the rest of her brothers, he had inherited their father's dark curly hair and pleasant grin, but not half of Astute's clever patience. As nearly everyone in the district knew, Leaplow was a notorious scrapper, fond of picking fights for the fun of it. Sometimes Sophraea felt more like Leaplow's keeper than his younger sister, attempting to teach him some good sense.
"Hush," Sophraea said, knowing how her brother always was tempted to do something foolish. Her cousins Bentnor and Cadriffle (who were exactly the same age as Leaplow) also were constantly in scuffles and liked earning extra coin by wrestling and boxing whenever they could find a match (although they had run out of men in the neighborhood willing to challenge them). But the twins could at least keep a cool head in a fight and knew when to run. Not that they'd needed to run after they'd grown to their full size. Leaplow, however, never backed down from any fight. He enjoyed the excitement too much and would keep swinging until someone was unconscious. Then he was just as likely to pick up his opponent, clap him over the shoulders, and buy him a drink.
"I'm sure I could take that hairy one," Leaplow muttered to his sister.
"Shush," she said, firmly treading on his foot closest to her. "You still haven't paid Father for all the damage you did last spring."
That fight, which Leaplow called a "wonderful way to spend a day" and the family called "a disgrace to our good name," had nearly wrecked some of the most important southern monuments in the City of the Dead.
City of the Dead w-4 Page 2