by Ed Greenwood
Elminster produced a pouch from somewhere under his robes, and from it poured a generous stream of coins into his empty tallglass in the center of the table.
Then he rose and offered Amarune his arm. She was very thoughtful but also stumbling weary, and almost fell as she found her feet and took that proferred arm.
“Where-?”
“I’m escorting ye back to thy rooms, where I’ll part from thee and let ye enjoy a good long sleep. As long as ye need, mind; I’ll settle things with thine employer so ye’ll not be greeted by swords when ye come next to dance. The Dragonriders’ should be reminded that drunken wizards can and do accuse any innocent lass of being almost anyone. I’ll play a sober wizard who knows better.”
Amarune nodded and let the old man lead her out through the deserted halls of The Willing Smile. Not the way they’d come in, she noticed; some discreet side exit, then.
So it proved to be, when Elminster ducked behind a narrow ascending stair, pushed on a panel, and they were in the outside air.
And almost falling over someone who was leaving the same establishment by another door that faced their own-a hasty departure of a robed man who was bent over as he scuttled forward, still fastening his clothing.
The collision was a mild one but parted Amarune and El and left them hopping for balance. They turned in unison-and found themselves looking into the glare of Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake.
Who flushed a deep crimson and started to stride forward, snapping threats and orders at “Two miscreants who should both be in our dungeons, before-”
Elminster turned his head in the teeth of this tirade and quietly asked Amarune, “Trip him for me, will ye, lass?”
Unhesitatingly she obeyed, toppling the war wizard abruptly on his face onto the cobbles, sprawled and senseless.
After staring down at the unconscious Mreldrake in sleepy astonishment for a moment, Amarune shook her head as if to clear away bewilderment and gave Elminster an almost accusative look.
“You … did you use a spell on me?”
“No,” Elminster told her truthfully. “Nor did ye obey me because I gave an order. Ye just did the right thing when I pointed it out to ye. We of the blood of Aumar can’t help ourselves, lass. Doing the right thing is what we do.”
He patted her arm. “Oh, the Realms will be fine in thy hands. Just fine.”
Those words left Amarune standing white-faced and slack-jawed in the street as she stared at him, at a complete loss for words.
Gently he took her arm again and started towing her home.
CHAPTER THIRTY
YOUR CASTLE OR MINE
Amarune awakened in darkness, lying amid her bedclothes. They were twisted and clammy, as if she’d spent the day wrestling with them rather than sleeping. She blinked up at the ceiling.
Gods, she felt exhausted. Ruthgul was dead, dead … and she might well be, too, the moment Talane or that Windstag noble or his bullyblades found her.
She dare not stay there.
But where could she go?
What should she do? Not just for the moment, but with her life?
She was a very public target at the Dragonriders’ … but she’d need coins coming in, to live anywhere.
Redoubling her career as the Silent Shadow only under a new name might be very profitable at that time, with Suzail full of wealthy nobles, but was stone-cold sure to be one thing. Very dangerous.
Even if there were no laws nor wizards or Purple Dragons to enforce them, and even if nobles were all careless-of-coin idiots with blunt swords who lacked House wizards or hired bodyguards, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to make her living by thievery anymore.
And what did the crazy old mage who thought she was his granddaughter want with her? To “save the Realms,” yes, but what did that mean? And just what would he put her through next?
Arclath’s face swam into her head … and suddenly, in a rush that took her breath away, Amarune found herself missing his company very much.
She wanted to hear that laugh of his again, his airy gestures and all the nonsense he drawled. She … stlarn it, she wanted to be at his side again. Where she felt, well, not safe, but confident. Or rather, wrapped in his confidence, as if it could carry them through any danger or difficulty or unpleasantness.
Huh. And what pit of vipers would that be, trailing along with drawling, pranksome, idiotic Lord Delcastle?
She shook her head and gave the dimly seen ceiling a wry shrug. No matter. It seemed to be what her sleeping self had decided she wanted to do.
Her next shrug took her out of bed in a long-limbed wriggle. Stalking to her row of cloak hooks for some clean clothing, she found herself wondering if Lord Arclath Delcastle would be at Delcastle Manor at that hour.
Or if, regardless of what time of day or night she appeared at its gates, the Delcastle servants would let her in-or just sneer and slam those grand doors in her face.
Drawing a clean clout up her legs, she frowned at that. Mustn’t let new vipers into their cozy little pit …
She smiled wryly and started thinking up grand tales of secret messages from the palace she’d be bringing him. She’d be … a highknight. Yes, she’d have to be.
“The words I bear are for the ears of Lord Arclath Argustagus Delcastle alone,” she murmured to her mirror, keeping her face as calm as stone. “They are … royal words.”
That sounded good. Almost good enough to get her in.
She grimaced and reached up to fetch the knives she strapped all over herself when being the Silent Shadow.
She had a gods-strong feeling she would be needing them.
“Behold,” Elminster muttered to himself, “in what minstrels are pleased to call ‘the dead of night,’ one Elminster of Shadowdale returns to his chosen abode and battlefield, by one of the few ways he feels able enough to use about now.”
The night-lass he’d just enriched by two golden lions glided to a graceful stop in front of the two duty guards, smiled as she calmly pulled open her bodice, and announced, “Wizard of War Rorskryn Mreldrake has just lost a bet, and by way of forfeit, has paid me well to entertain you two loyal Dragons.”
“Stand back, lass,” the older guard replied sternly, peering warily past her into the night. “We’re under strict orders to let no one pass, not stray from our posts, and keep all who have weapons a safe reach away from us.”
The night-lass stepped back meekly and undid her gown.
“These are the only weapons I have,” she told them slyly, gesturing down at herself.
The younger guard growled wordlessly, stepped away from the door they were guarding, and reached for her.
“I’ll stand watch,” his older comrade growled quickly. “Be quick.”
His resolve lasted long enough for Elminster to begin to think his coins hadn’t bought him passage after all, but the night-lass knew her work. One of her hands had been beckoning the older Dragon all the while, until eventually he growled and strode eagerly forward.
Wherefore Elminster stepped away from the bit of the wall he’d been pretending to be a part of for a very long time, and slipped through the door unnoticed, without a sound or any undue haste.
By the time the younger guard decided it would be prudent to at least look up from the lass-whose name he very much desired to know, for future occasions-and peer around to make sure the street was empty of a patrol or a noble’s coach or two or perhaps a small approaching army, Elminster was several secret passages deep into the palace and descending some old, damp, seldom-used stairs.
He had magic to plunder, a hiding place to find, and a kingdom to save. In short, the usual …
Amarune drew in a deep breath, pulled her cloak more snugly around her-the moon was up, but the night had turned cold-and firmly clacked the knocker of the porter’s door beside the gates of Delcastle Manor. Slowly and deliberately, thrice.
Almost immediately, she heard a soft, sliding sound, as if a plate on the other side of the door had been sl
id aside to let someone peer at her. In the shadowed gloom, she couldn’t see any change in the door, but someone was there, watching and listening. There was movement behind the high, many-barred gates, too; guards, no doubt, taking up and aiming ready crossbows.
Silence stretched. She worked the knocker again.
This time, the response was a rattle of chain and a louder sliding. A square of heavy, double-layered grille revealed itself in the door at about eye level, a pair of steady eyes regarding her from behind it.
“Delcastle Manor,” their owner murmured. “Your business?”
“I’ve come at the invitation of Lord Arclath Delcastle,” Amarune replied carefully, knowing well what might be assumed about a woman walking alone and cloaked by night, and trying to sound polite, refined, and formal, “to speak with him. I am aware of the hour.”
“I am sorry,” the porter replied, sounding as if he really was, “but the Lord Delcastle is not now at home. Perhaps tomorrow, around highsun, I will be able to give you a different reply.”
“I see,” Amarune said, managing to keep her sigh quiet. “Do you know where he is?”
“Out dining. I was given to understand. Darcleir’s Haven is a likelihood, but with so many friends, old and otherwise, newly arrived in Suzail, he might very well end up elsewhere. In the meantime, I regret I cannot admit guests to wait for him.”
“Of course,” she replied, turning away.
Where to, she was not quite sure. Nowhere at all might be safe for her, and among all these tall, formidable walls and the frequent Watch patrols, she could hardly linger on these streets of mansions and-
Lost in her thoughts, she almost walked right into a pair of gleaming boots and the dark-clad man who was wearing them, standing right in front of her in the night.
She flung herself back, clapping hand to knife-and saw that it was Arclath Delcastle, smiling a rather tired smile at her. He was just arriving home from the Haven, having grown heartily tired of the company of overpainted, oh-so-pretty venomous vipers of young and predatory noble ladies, with their honeyed threats and condescensions.
Their eyes met, and one good look at her frightened, imploring eyes told him something. Breaking into a broad grin, he swept one arm around Amarune with a loud and delighted, “Lady Amarune! We must talk! Your castle or mine?”
“Y-yours,” she managed to whisper. “If it’s … convenient.”
“In your company, all things are convenient,” he replied heartily. “Open up, Lorold!”
The gates were already parting, guards coming to attention. Arclath gave them both bright smiles and nods, waved to the porter, and swept his cloaked guest past them all into the moonlit gardens beyond.
“I’m honored that you came to visit us so promptly! The family will be so pleased!”
He took her arm, firmly guiding her up a gentle slope of grass wet with heavy dew to a path lined with tall plantings of uruth and bedaelia. “To our right, the Delcastle bridal bower! Ahead of us, the summerhouse, and to our left, looking down across the main carriageway to the arbor, we can see in the distance the five fishponds my great-grandsire was so proud of. The Delcastle stables are justly famed for their-”
By then they were well along the floral path, and he stopped in midsentence, dropped his voice to a murmur, and asked, “Do you need shelter? A meal? A place to talk?”
“All of those, I suppose,” Amarune replied, hesitantly. “To talk, mostly.”
“Here, or inside, where the dragon that is my mother snorts fire and growls, devouring a steady procession of young and perfumed men entering her bedchamber?”
Amarune sighed. “Do you have a room you can call your own, with a door that locks?”
Arclath eyed her gravely. “I do. Have you a reputation left to maintain?”
Amarune snorted. “As a barepelt club dancer? I’ll risk it.”
“But what of my reputation?” he asked lightly.
“I can probably manage to moan and gasp and sob your name loudly from time to time, and thereby salvage it,” she told him dryly.
Arclath rolled his eyes then grinned like an eager lad, his eyes dancing. “Then come!”
“Can we at least have drinks first?” she teased. “Isn’t that the courtly way?”
“We can,” he promised. “Yet never make the mistake again of thinking nobles are courtly away from court. As mistakes go, that can be one of the fatal ones.”
Well, at least he was still good at one thing.
Not that breaking into the royal palace of Suzail with swift ease was apt to advance him far in any new career he’d prefer to pursue.
Panderer? Nay …
Elminster gave the dark and empty secret passage he was traversing his best wry grin as he hastened along it. Then he winced. Aye, he had a blister rising on his left heel. He was getting too old for waltzing young lasses home and then rushing back across too much of Suzail to seek his own hidehold, before-
Hoy, there! He stiffened, slowed, and then advanced more cautiously. The murmur of voices ahead was many-throated and excited; something had befallen.
The clack was coming through some spyholes from a room beside the passage and had the same air of alert bustle that befalls a castle before a siege; something he’d heard a time or twelvescore and remembered all too well.
Ah, that voice was Mallowfaer, the Master of Revels, in full pompous bluster.
Elminster rolled his eyes and glided to a cautious halt by the spyholes, taking care to keep well back from them as he peered through.
The robing-room on the other side of the wall was crowded with courtiers, and war wizards, too; facing El but half-hidden behind the shoulder of Understeward Corleth Fentable was a rather bruised-looking Rorskryn Mreldrake. The spyholes were situated behind and just above the left shoulder of Khaladan Mallowfaer, who evidently wanted to impress everyone with his authority and exacting attention to detail, but also sounded determined to demonstrate just how pompous and nasty he could be, in the process.
The burdens of his song were intertwined harmonies of exasperation at unfolding chaos, glee that the problem could not-by any stretch of verbiage he would allow-be laid at his door, and that he was in charge of formal protocols at the moment and could therefore decree with nigh royal authority. It seemed the palace had become aware that Ganrahast and Vainrence both seemed to be missing, with our wizards of war very alarmed about it and rushing about searching here, there, and everywhere without wanting to admit that anything at all was amiss-with the council only days away! What to do? What to do?
At that moment, with a sputtering roar, it became clear that Understeward Fentable’s superior, the bullying, blustering, and overblown Palace Steward Rorstil Hallowdant-who was both lazy and a drunkard and therefore spent much of his time snoring somewhere, leaving things to the highly efficient and widely liked understeward, much to the relief of most courtiers-had heard quite enough of someone else being haughty and giving orders right and left.
“The Master of Revels,” he said in a voice that had a finger-lopping-sharp edge to it, “seems to forget that everyone in this chamber right now is a dedicated, skilled professional, from the clerk of the shield here beside me to the under-clerks of protocol yonder, all four of them. It is our common business to know the location and deeds of each royal personage, both before and throughout the council, from the smallest appointment to the grandest feast, and from our beloved King Foril to Lord Royal Erzoured and the Countess of Dhedluk. The Master of Revels needs only to coordinate, and not to command.”
“Of course,” Mallowfaer responded in a voice that had an edge all its own, “but the Crown Prin-”
“Crown Prince Irvel confers with me often. I last spoke with him-and with Princess Ospra, Prince Baerovus, and Princess Raedra-just before departing the Sunstatues Chamber to come here. All of them are confident the customary support of the entire palace will make this council a success, however tense matters become. I should add that even one not born to high stati
on, the Lady Solatha Boldtree, shares this confidence and has said as much. To me.”
“Nevertheless-”
“Nevertheless,” the palace steward said crushingly, “we deal with functions and courtesies large and small here in this great seat of rulership, day in and day out, and shall continue to do so without any need for the Master of Revels to try to alter or gainsay the usual precedence or procedures. I fully expect each and every one of you to-”
Elminster shook his head and strolled on down the secret passage, Hallowdant’s coldly cutting words fading behind him. He found himself both amused-he could practically complete the palace steward’s speech by heart, without any need to actually hear the rest of it-and heartened. Murmurs of agreement had been backing Hallowdant in a sort of chorus.
The court was bent on their duties.
Ganrahast or no Ganrahast, things would go on. Haughty and fussy and backbiting though they were, the courtiers of Cormyr would deal with things.
King rise or king fall, regicide or nobles poisoning each other with abandon or chasing each other down the halls with gore-dripping battle-axes, the palace servants would endure. And the Forest Kingdom with them, for they were the kingdom. They and the carters and crofters, foresters and horsebreeders, goodwives and crafters and smiths, from the Thunder Peaks to the Stormhorns. Let Hallowdant and Mallowfaer spit and snarl; most of the other faces he’d just seen through a spyhole were both worried and excited. They were the faces of men who cared.
The Forest Kingdom was still strong. Whoever warmed the throne or this or that high lord’s chair might change, but the kingdom would endure.
Which meant a certain Sage of Shadowdale could take the items that held the survivors of the Nine for Alassra. Cormyr would get along just fine without them.
Lord Arclath Delcastle stopped, put his hands on his hips, and sighed in exasperation.
He had arisen early this fine bright morning, checked that his slumbering guest was still sleeping-they had talked late into the night but had slept apart, Arclath showing her his private pantry and sideboard and that she could lock herself in with them, and had heard her promptly do so-taken a quick breakfast of spiced plover’s eggs and hearth cakes, thrown on some suitably dandified finery, given his trusted servants firm instructions to render all reasonable aid to Amarune and to do so with respect, and taken himself off to the palace.