“The other sack’s full of the same,” Laspeera said. “All good coins, none of them marked or enspelled. As good as anything in the king’s own purse.”
“Mine if I do what?” Brorn asked.
“Spy on Vangerdahast and any of his agents—war wizards who serve him more than they serve the king, plus his own thieves and spies—for me. Just watch them, mind. I am not asking you to try to fight or even reveal yourself to the Royal Magician. Just watch, then tell me of any treason you witness or suspect.”
“And how will I tell you?”
“Whenever you see me. I’ll find you from time to time, and I’ll bring more gold with me.”
“That’s all?” Brorn asked.
Laspeera got up, pulled open her bodice to bare her front from waist to shoulders, and purred, “That’s all for now.”
Brorn swallowed, stared at what had been bared to his gaze for a good long time, then lifted his eyes to meet hers and said roughly, “I’ll do it.”
Laspeera’s smile was warm with promise. “You won’t regret it.”
Making no move to cover herself, she added, “Please don’t be surprised or offended if I—or all of the royal family—pretend not to know you, if you happen to see us, even in private. If we think Vangerdahast is spying on us at that moment, our acting thus may be all that protects your life. Remember always that you will be safest if he doesn’t notice you at all.”
She leaned forward over the fire.
“As for me, I’ve been watching you for a long time, and I like what I see.” Then she blew him a kiss and added softly, “Take care of yourself, Brorn.”
A moment later, she was gone. Vanished as if she’d never been there at all, leaving only the other sack of coins across the flickering flames from him.
After a moment, Brorn cursed, raced around the fire, and clawed that sack open. More golden lions and—he plucked up a few at random and eyed them very closely—aye, as good as any minting he’d ever seen.
“Tymora,” he muttered, “I don’t know what I did to gain your good graces, but—thank you. A thousand thank yous. I hope you won’t be offended if I bury most of these, take a handful, and go and get myself a playpretty for a long night of proper rutting before I seek out one of your altars and make a proper offering.”
Filling his pouch, he scooped coins back into the sacks, retied them, and sat back with a disbelieving shake of his head.
“Holy dancing dung-goblins,” he told the fire in happy disbelief.
Tymora was merciful. The fire didn’t answer back.
Chapter 11
DELIVERANCE FROM TUMULT AND FIRE
For to us all, when most afraid
Comes a pressing need for aid
Deliverance from tumult and fire
Challenges, or doom most dire;
Aid, mayhap, for a bold Harper bright
Or means to drive down a lich or a wight
Or wise words, hope, a smile or a kiss—
Answered need our greatest bliss
from the ballad
“Wept By Fireside At Twilight”
(Anonymous)
First prominent circa the Year of the Highmantle
Princess Alusair was rather proud of herself.
For months now she’d been trading dark, well-made, but plain gowns—of the sort one of her maids could just get away with wearing on special occasions outside the Royal Palace—for specific garments from among their “everydays.” She’d built up quite a bundle of patched and worn smocks, aprons, breeches, jerkins, and hooded half-cloaks. These gains, bundled up together, were all hidden, stuffed under a loose tread-board on the private stairs down to the Princes’ Stable. Though she and Tana, princesses both, now shared that little enclave in the sprawling Palace stables, it was still “the Princes’ Stable” and probably always would be. Her sister rode only at regular times these days, so for the rest of the time the narrow, dark stair was Alusair’s own.
Wherefore she now had suitable garments in which to depart the Palace by way of those same stables, without immediately being recognized as a princess. Which meant she was spared the racket of alarm gongs and horns and the humiliation of being pounced upon by well-meaning Highknights and Purple Dragons and war wizards and dragged before her royal father—or mother or both—for discipline.
Hmm. Discipline. Her shapely behind was still burning, but the spanking hadn’t chastened her one whit. Gods above, but her mother could whack hard!
Alusair’s rump burned a little more painfully at the mere recollection. Not to mention the homespun rasping over rawness wherever where her silken clout didn’t cover her.
She was, she’d discovered, actually a little proud of her burning behind. Though it was hardly something she could show casually to passersby, she felt it gave her something in common with the scarred old retired Purple Dragons she’d been seeing for as long as she could remember—the veterans who showed off their war marks proudly on feast days.
She, too, had been wounded standing up for Cormyr.
The step, tugged a little sideways to free it from its pegs, came up readily enough. Out came the bundle, and she stripped on the stairs in excited haste, shoving her glossy nightgown in with the clothes she wasn’t going to use. Tugging on breeches, a worn and stained jerkin, and a hooded half-cloak, Alusair replaced the step and scampered on down the stairs.
Not to the bottom, where she was sure to be seen by stablehands or one of the guards. No, she’d long ago noticed that her stair passed an open end of the hayloft. It took but a moment to reach up, swinging and kicking in midair to bring her legs up over the edge then around a riser. With that post securely wedged into the backs of her knees, she could twist and claw the rest of herself up to join them.
The loft was low, long, and straight, like an attic. Mice squeaked and scampered through the hay as she crawled swiftly along through it, but they didn’t bother her. The length of the hayloft could take her right out of the royal stalls into the next part of the stables, above the horses of equerries, envoys, and senior courtiers, to a third area reserved for the mounts of visiting royalty and dignitaries. She knew none were visiting Suzail just now, which meant there’d be neither stablehands nor guards, and all would be in darkness. Right next to the sprawling Royal Gardens, which she knew like her own morning face in the mirror, leaving her with an easy way to slip out of the Palace and back in again later.
Guards patrolled the Royal Gardens, but Alusair knew where they’d be. Moreover, they were watching for undesirables trying to sneak in, not get out. So long as her mother forbade the lopping of boughs off the mrimmon trees to quell any wisp of a chance that there’d ever be a paucity of mrimmon jelly on the royal cheese platters, there’d be several easy ways over the garden walls for a fairly light and agile princess who didn’t mind undignified acrobatics.
Two strides away from the still-bouncing bough in her wake, Alusair was the very image of a weary, head-down underservant, trudging home late and in much need of a crust and a tankard of warm soup.
“Not a bad actor, our little spitfire princess,” Wizard of War Baerent Orninspur said to his fellow mage.
Nodding, Wizard of War Mrask Tallowthond replied, “Almost as if she’s done this a time or two before.”
They indulged in a shared chuckle and fell into step behind the princess, keeping to the shadows on the harbor side of the Promenade—the side they were almost certain Alusair would soon be seeking.
Both wizards were tall, thin, young men who would not have looked out of place in armor, but Baerent was the one with the flashy good looks that caught feminine eyes wherever he went. Less handsome Mrask, lacking such easy charm, took refuge behind a moustache and a sharp tongue.
“Least she entertains us on these little jaunts,” Baerent said. “Where d’you think she’s bound for, this time? Another night of drinking and flirting?”
Mrask shook his head. “Too purposeful, and too much restless haste in her chambers, earlier. She’
s bound on some secret little mission or other and excited about it.” He jerked his head. “There she goes now.”
The weary little servant had crossed the broad Promenade, dodging lamplit coaches and the ever-numerous throngs of citizenry walking with handcarts and sling-satchels and lit pipes, to reach the mouth of a side street.
The two war wizards walked faster, trying to get closer to see where she went ere the corner between them hid her going through a door, ducking down an alley, or sprinting up a stair to some upstair abode.
Tiny locks of her hair rode in their belt pouches, so they could use tracing magic if they had to, but Obarskyrs tended to go strolling weighed down with magical gewgaws. If Alusair felt their trace, her revealing behavior would change—even before things started getting unpleasant for Mrask Tallowthond and Baerent Orninspur.
As it happened, Mrask got to the corner a stride ahead of Baerent. He was in time to fling out a hand to keep his colleague back out of sight. “The spitfire gets adventurous! She’s headed into the Touch!”
“The Moontouch?” Baerent stood thunderstruck and could not resist the temptation to step around Mrask’s hand and reach a spot where he could see for himself.
He had training enough to step back before dropping his jaw and staring disbelievingly at the side of Mrask’s head. Mrask hadn’t looked away from the princess since reaching the corner and wasn’t about to do so now.
There was no way either mage could be mistaken. One of Suzail’s finer pleasure-houses, Daransa’s Moontouch was situated above several haughty shops that sold gowns, gloves, hats, and lace adornments to women who could afford ruinous overcharging. There were two public ways into the Touch, both outside stairs that led nowhere else. The princess was on a landing at the top of the more public stair right now, speaking with a mountainous door guard—and no doubt having a hard time convincing him that she should be allowed past.
Just what a Princess of Cormyr could be seeking in luxuriously furnished rooms where highcoin lasses lived and worked was something neither war wizard wanted to speculate about. Not when it was their task to ascertain for certain what she was up to and report back same to the Royal Magician of Cormyr.
“She’s going in,” Mrask said. “Do we—?”
“No,” Baerent said. “She’s not a dullard, and she knows my face. She won’t think two war wizards just happened to want to slake their lusts at the very time she’s visiting the Touch. We won’t just learn nothing; we might well get our faces scratched half off and that door guard set upon us.”
“Just for a start,” Mrask agreed. “More importantly, she’ll know we were set to watch over her, our usefulness in doing so would be ended—and Old Vangey will not be pleased.”
“Tluin,” Baerent agreed thoughtfully as he stepped behind Mrask to cast a scrying spell so as to watch and listen to the princess.
“Done,” he said a moment later. “Your turn.”
They traded places, Baerent now watching the closed door of the Moontouch and the impassive door guard standing against it with arms folded, staring down at all the folk of Suzail hurrying past.
Mrask worked the same scrying spell Baerent had, nodded to show his readiness, and the two war wizards found a little stretch of building wall to lean against and start their spying.
Only to stiffen in astonishment. Their spells had been cast perfectly and were working well—but something was stopping them, right at the closed door of the Moontouch.
Not one but two war wizard scryings, utterly blocked.
Doust Sulwood liked to be calm and quiet, so these surges of lich-fear were unsettling him more than a little. Yet he was neither stupid nor distracted, and he wasted no time in staring sternly into the eyes of the nearest Jhessail, who was moving her fingers in the swift gestures of a spell. Doust unleashed a command with all the holy power of Tymora he could muster: “Fall!”
Pennae’s dagger was already in her hand. She thrust it under the curve of the same Jhessail’s bodice, so the wizard’s fall would plunge her right onto it. Fingers still spellweaving and eyes wild, Jhessail crumpled, crying, “No!”
Pennae whipped her blade away as swiftly as any racing lightning bolt. The helpless mage crashed to the floor unbloodied. In the same motion, Pennae whirled to menace the other Jhessail in the same way. Semoor was already shouting the same command.
The second Jhessail swept the dagger aside with her forearm, giving Pennae a crooked smile, then sagged at her knees, as if starting to fall.
“Not fooled,” Islif said from right behind her, clamping iron-hard fingers on both of the mage’s elbows and yanking them back to touch each other—as she brought one knee firmly up into the wizard’s back. “Jhess couldn’t withstand that holy magic, so you’re not Jhess!”
Lifting the false Jhessail by the elbows and using her knee to pivot her captive, Islif swung the now-struggling wizard in front of her like a shield.
“Behind me, everyone!” she said, her eyes hard as she watched the lich grandly babble the last words of an incantation.
The impostor in her grasp tried to hiss out an incantation, but Florin was ready. His belt flask was in his hand, and whenever her lips opened, he squirted water into her mouth, hard, drowning her words in helpless choking coughs.
Then, in a flood of crawling emerald fire, the lich’s spell washed over them all.
Alusair found herself in a warm, richly paneled parlor lined with scarlet draperies, over which hung tapestries depicting vivid scenes of lovemaking—scenes so well limned that they seemed almost lifelike.
She blushed, despite her firm resolve to the contrary earlier, and took refuge in the warm brown eyes of the ivory-hued woman who rose to greet her. As finely gowned as any noblewoman at a formal Court dinner, the tall apparition of striking beauty smiled in genuine welcome, reaching forward to take Alusair’s hands—with fingers as soft as warm silk—as if she were a long-lost friend. The gesture made the unlaced front of her gown fall open right down to the girdle that encircled her hips, but she seemed unaware that this had occurred.
“Lady,” she said warmly, “your arrival brings much pleasure! Pray, take your ease! I am Daransa, and this is my house. What is your will?”
It was obvious that Daransa hadn’t recognized her as the Princess Alusair but merely thought her to be some young wisp of a commoner. It was just as obvious that she was genuinely pleased to see her unexpected and unfamiliar guest.
“I, uh, I—” Alusair began, stumbling under that friendly gaze.
Daransa had kept hold of her hands, and she gently drew Alusair to her breast, urging her to a handy couch and murmuring, “Yet I am overbold. Tea, perhaps? Warm broth? Speak at your leisure, dear. I don’t mean to press you.”
Alusair halted that gentle steering once her knee was against the edge of the couch and her nose almost touching Daransa’s bosom. She lifted her chin and blurted out what she’d come to say.
“Your kindness is much appreciated, Lady Daransa, but I am here only to deliver a message for you to pass on with all urgency: ‘Three pearls have been lost, but one is now found.’ ”
The eyes staring into hers flickered, and Daransa gravely repeated the message in a low whisper. Accustomed to the subtle signals of Court converse, the princess could tell by Daransa’s eyes that she now knew who Alusair was.
Breathing in the delicately spicy scent that clung to Daransa’s curves, Alusair added, “So that you know I mean no deception, hear me: Harper Dalonder Ree gave me those words and told me that if ever I wanted to call on him, they could be said to you here. He’ll know where to find me. So far as I know, I shall be found in the usual places. As much as possible, I’ll keep to my chambers until I hear from him.”
Daransa knelt, keeping hold of Alusair’s fingertips only long enough to kiss them, and rose to whisper, “Highness, this shall be done—and know that you are always welcome in my house.”
Alusair gave her a real smile. “You have certainly made me feel so. My thanks.�
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Bowing her head and assuming once more the bent-over posture of a weary servant, she turned to the door. It opened in front of her, seemingly by itself, to reveal the guard beyond. He neither bowed nor made any flourish of ushering her out but bent near to mutter, “Please know that inwardly I am on my knees to you, Highness.”
Alusair gave him a sidelong grin, ducked her head, and went back down the stairs into the bustle of the city.
She headed straight back the way she’d come, placing speed before stealth, and spotted Baerent Orninspur’s handsome features right away—despite his swift movement to turn his back on her and converse with his friend, whom she now recognized as another war wizard.
“Fair evening, you filthy spies,” she greeted them cheerfully as she swept past, giving the dumbfounded pair a sweet smile.
Green flames seared and tore like a thundering waterfall of heavy, battering fire that burned as it smashed into Knights and swept them away.
Florin was hurled away in that raging flood, and Islif after him, her grip on the false Jhessail lost.
Slammed hard into the paneled walls, winded and heaped atop each other, the Knights gasped amid sudden relief, as rainbow-hued protective magics surged up out of the wood to drive back the emerald flames a foot or so from their noses.
The flames slowly died away, leaving the lich with the staff standing in triumph as it surveyed the twisted bodies heaped along the back wall of the dead end.
It didn’t seem to notice the man standing right in front of it, alone in the open space its spell had cleared—the seemingly unharmed man the false Jhessail had turned into.
Tall, slender, and darkly handsome, wearing stylish black boots, breeches, tunic, and half-cloak, the man regarded the Knights of Myth Drannor with a half smile.
Semoor gaped up at him. “And who in the Nine Hells are you?”
“Ah, adventurers,” the man sneered. “Always so eloquent.”
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