Highknight Malustra Thaurant sighed, cleaned already-perfect fingernails with the point of her belt knife, and uncrossed her long legs in a way that never failed to make Arglas swallow. She winked, just to watch him blush, and rose with sinuous grace, her every move a wanton beckoning. “Can I have some fun with him first?”
Arglas sighed in exasperation, and pointed the highcoin lass to the door. “I don’t for the life of me know why His Majesty ever made you a highknight!”
“Oh?” She crooked one cool eyebrow and purred, “I do.”
Her strut, as she went out, left Arglas swallowing repeatedly, his throat very dry. Which made him thankful he was the king’s cellarer, with the duty to sample every last bottle and decanter.
He very much wanted to sample several of them, right now.
War Wizard Andreth Thalendur had safely returned the speaking-stone to its thrice-locked coffer long since, and was oh-so-casually commencing to dust the ornate container’s lid for the third time when a door opened and the words he’d been expecting came to his ears.
“You, man! Sirrah!”
He made no reply and declined to look up, and so collected a sharp prod in the ribs with the gilded nether tip of Lord Crownsilver’s cane, wielded by Lady Crownsilver, who accompanied her polite greeting with the words, “War Wizard, we’re speaking to you!”
Andreth looked up, smiling the faintest of smiles. “Yes? I hear your words, but I’ve been trained not to listen to them.”
“Oh, you’ll listen to these, all right!” Lord Crownsilver snarled, reaching out a hand to dig iron fingers into the knave’s robes at the throat, to haul the smug byblow right off his feet so every Crownsilver word henceforth could be spat right into his face.
“Maniol!” Lady Crownsilver snapped, but whatever else she’d been going to say died unspoken as tiny blue-white arcs of lightning sprang from the war wizard’s robes to Lord Crownsilver’s reaching fingertips, causing the noble to shout in astonished pain.
“Ah. Sorry. I’m wearing something new that High Lord Vangerdahast is testing,” Andreth said pleasantly. “Seems to smite foes of the realm very well … doesn’t it?”
“Enough of this effrontery, knave,” Lady Crownsilver said coldly. “We demand an audience with Azoun—His Majesty to you! Kindly take word to him at once!”
Andreth bowed to them, smiled, and wordlessly withdrew.
The Crownsilvers scarcely had time to exchange glances and for Maniol to receive a hissed, “Stop holding your fingers like a child about to cry! Look like a lord, stlarn you!” ere the war wizard returned, bowed, indicated the man who’d followed him into the room, and departed again.
The man was not, however, the King of Cormyr.
The Royal Magician Vangerdahast gave the Crownsilvers his all-too-familiar half-smile, along with the words, “I regret to inform you that His Majesty is in the countryside, shielded from converse by magics even I cannot break. Rest assured that he will be informed of your polite request as soon as it is possible to inform him of anything, and that he will grant you an audience shortly thereafter, as the pressing needs of the realm allow.”
Lady Crownsilver said coldly, “Spare the glib-tongued emptynesses, Vangey. You’re not performing before all the court right now. I’d have much ruder things to say to you if we didn’t need your cooperation and candor—for the good of the realm, of course. So speak plain and true. Did this commoner Falconhand rut with our daughter?”
Vangerdahast did not hesitate. Looking Jalassa straight in the eye, he said, “No. Your daughter is, ah, untouched; you need fear no unexpected heirs.”
Glowering, Lord Crownsilver snapped, “You’re certain?”
“We’ve cast some spells to see into their minds, while they were dreaming,” the royal magician said soothingly, “searching for memories of intimacy, and that alone. There were no such memories.”
“Aye, but she’s smitten with the lout! What if he—?”
“The king is well aware of your concerns. You might say that as a father and as a monarch concerned with inheritance and lineage, he anticipated them. More than that, he shares them. Wherefore His Majesty is going to grant this Florin Falconhand and his friends a charter—so as to have ready pretext to send them all away.”
“Far away,” Lady Crownsilver snapped.
“Where?” Lord Crownsilver snarled.
Vangerdahast smiled, spread his hands like a conjurer discovering a gift for a small child in his palm, and replied, “To the Stonelands, of course. It’s needed conquering for years.”
Slowly—very slowly—Lord Crownsilver nodded, a grim smile spreading across his face. “So it has.” His smile grew, as he echoed in a satisfied whisper, “So it has.”
As the door closed behind the royal magician, busily ushering the Crownsilvers out before him, the speaking-stone glowed once, ever so faintly.
There was no one in the chamber to see it, but someone else did. Someone whose hand, adorned with a striking unicorn-head ring, waved into nothingness a scrying-spell linked to the stone. And smiled.
Sometimes, the watcher mused, it’s very handy being a war wizard entrusted with enspelling scrying crystals.
When the time comes, and he’s staring right into one, Vangerdahast won’t know what’s hit him.
Chapter 9
ADVENTURERS AVAUNT!
There is no greater plague upon the lands than the chartered adventurer. Crown-sanctioned mischief makers, brigands whose thefts, casual murders, rapine and pillage are excused where the same things done by a cobbler or a milkmaid would be answered with severings of hands or other appendages, plus brandings—or all of those and hanging or death by drawing between four horses.
Yet there is no more necessary plague. Adventurers make even kings think twice about cruelly oppressing all who pass within reach, teach prudence to high priests and even rogue wizards, and are almost the only curb upon the numbers of dragons and other large and monstrous beasts.
On the whole, I think the balance comes out about even. What makes us keep adventuring charters instead of burning them along with their bearers is the entertainment adventurers afford the populace. In hamlets and at waymoots, after one’s grumbled about the weather, taxes, the latest rumors of war and orc raids, and the all-too-paltry gossip about the indiscretions of royalty and nobility, there’s little else to talk about but the foolish escapades of adventurers.
Thundaerlel Maurlatrimm
Four Decades of Innkeeping
published in the Year of the Highmantle
Royal Scribe Blaunel, did you eat something bad?”
“No, Royal Scribe Lathlan,” came the somewhat weary reply through the garderobe door. “I ate something at highsunfeast that disagreed with my patrician bowels. However, I’m hrasted sure they’re empty now!”
“Good to hear. I’m not doing this new charter alone.”
The door opened and Blaunel emerged, waving his hands to shake away the last few drops of rosewater. “What is it? Those dolts in Arabel haven’t finally managed to agree on a name for their rushcaning guild, have they? Or run out of dissident rushcaners to knife in alleys?”
“No such luck, Tymora forfend. ’Tis our bold Azoun-saving adventurers, claiming their royal reward whilst their deed is still on everyone’s tongues!”
“Huh,” Blaunel grunted, sounding profoundly unimpressed as he slid back into his seat and reached for his favorite quill. “What are this lot calling themselves? No more ‘Flaming Banners of the Valiant Valorous,’ I trust?”
“Ha! These are upcountry hay-noses. They’ve not the learning to spell ‘Valorous,’ nor ‘Valiant.’ No, they just wanted ‘Swords of Espar.’ ”
The senior scribe sighed. “Know they nothing of the lore of the realm? Some of the Swords are still alive—and dwelling right here in Suzail!”
“Aye, I saw Mlaareth a ride ago, striding along the Promenade like he owned it with a lass on each arm. And to answer you straight: no, I guess not. You’d think, g
rowing up in Espar, they’d at least have heard of the Swords of Espar—minstrels only tell the tale of the Dragondown Slaying once a month or so!”
Undermaster of the Rolls and Scribe Royal Blaunel belched delicately, raising the back of his hand to his mouth more out of habit than politeness, and shrugged. “Mayhap they have. If they’re as simple as all that, they may not know they can’t name themselves after an adventuring band that still holds a charter, retired or not.”
He fell silent to finish shaping an elaborate swash, did so with practised skill, and grunted, “So what’d they pick, when told they couldn’t be Swords of Espar?”
Lathlan smiled. “Swords of Eveningstar.”
Blaunel snorted. “Strained their wits hard, didn’t they? Surprised they didn’t call themselves the Trollblood Blades!” Shaking his head, he began to shape the first fanciful “S” of “Swords.” Then another thought struck him.
“Still, I suppose if they had wits, they’d not be adventurers. They’d be merry-swindling merchants instead.”
“And dwelling in Sembia, awaiting daggers in their backs,” Lathlan replied promptly.
The two scribes exchanged grins, dipped their quill pens in unison, and bent their noses to the charter in unspoken accord.
The sooner done, the sooner off to the Swan for a tankard. Or three.
When it grew late and the back room of the Watchful Eye crowded with tired, well-slaked farmhands all too easily irritated into swinging their fists, the oldest topers of Espar were wont to drift outside for a last pipe and a word or two in the moonlight, ere ambling off home.
Under the moonlight, the usual six or seven old hardjaws were leaning against Dammurth Talgont’s back stable wall, across the street from the inn, trading comfortable jests and the latest gossip.
That clack for once concerned not just highborn doings in Suzail, the latest flareups of those flamebrains in Arabel, unfolding schemes of the murderous and serpent-tongued smugglers of Marsember, and most recent flamboyantly coin-wasting idiocies of the legions of gold-for-brains gaudy prancing dolts who dwelt in Sembia. This night, talk touched on Espar itself!
On every tongue hereabouts, in the wake of the swift-racing news of the great Battle of Hunter’s Hollow—wherein a lone local lad had singlehandedly hewn down a sinister and mysterious invading army lying in wait to ambush the king—was the name of Florin Falconhand.
Old Durrust the miller took his long clay pipe out of his mouth long enough to say, “Oh, he’s a pretty one. The ladies all agree on that.”
“More’n’that,” Barth the Barrelhead put in, “plenty of lads look to him, too. He’d make a good Purple Dragon commander, he would.” The local cooper was one of the few men adorning the wall who’d not been a Purple Dragon—and so of course considered himself an expert on all matters, large and small, of warfare and the Cormyrean military.
Thorl Battlestorm spat thoughtfully into a nearby clump of weeds. “Ah, but would he? What if he’s a clevershanks, all selfish—or a real bad ’un? We don’t know that, now, do we? I’d be fair surprised if he doesn’t get up to some of the same foolishness all young lads do. Some come out of it, but some go on to greater and greater folly, and come to bad ends … usually long after the gods should’ve served them with what they deserved.”
“That’s just it,” Durrust agreed. “He’s young, yet.”
“Aye,” agreed the horse breeder Nornuth, “and as young bucks go, those looks and knowing the forest and all, bid fair to make him better at charming the lasses than most.”
Durrust tapped out his pipe. “Sound not so rueful, Norn. I hear you did all right in your day, in such—hem—valorous pursuits.”
There were chuckles, but Battlestorm overrode them with a stern, “Let’s not ride down that road, lads; my ears have heard more than enough chortling memories of lasses long gone and how soft and splendid they were. ’Tis this Florin lad, late of Hawkstone’s forges—where he acquitted himself well, I’m told—who’s on the brink of knighthoods and royal favor and riding off to Suzail in mirrorbright armor and all. We’ve chewed over our elder days oft enough, and can again when other fancies falter. What I want to know is: Is he a shining hero sent to Cormyr by the gods, or a dullard who just happened to do the right thing when excitement landed atop him, or something in between? Is he really a brilliant bladesman, and a swift-as-a-hawk fearless strategist, and truly noble of heart and character? Or do we just want him to be?”
“Those are thoughts every loving mother wrestles with.” A calm, quiet woman’s voice came out of the night, from the shadows nigh Tarreth Oldhall’s back shed. “I’m no different than most, Thorl.”
The men fell silent, abashed, as Florin’s mother stepped out into the moonlight. Imsra Skydusk’s spells and the regard they all held for Hethcanter Falconhand, whose name still held weight in Purple Dragon barracks ten years after he’d last worn the king’s armor, had kept her from the bother of any man of Espar trying to romance her, or even leer and wink at her over tankards. Yet her every stride was liquid grace, and she was the darksome half-elf beauty many local men thought about, when lying in their beds seeking sleep that would not come. Cloaked in moonlight, she was throat-tighteningly beautiful.
“I …” Thorl Battlestorm tended to dominate any gathering, and men of Espar looked to him. He felt he should say something now, and rather uneasily continued, “owe you an apology, ma’am. We—ah—meant no offense, but merely—”
“And you’ve given none, Thorl. None of you have. Every mother loves her son and wants to see him rise high and far in life, to be happy and looked to by all. Yet I very much fear my Florin will put a foot wrong—and the more exalted the company, the harder will be his fall. More than that, I can’t and won’t chase after him and spy on him every day, and so see not all that he does. Though I’ve seen nothing to make me worry, I’m afraid he may have put a foot or two wrong already.”
Semoor spread his hands. “Why ‘Eveningstar’?”
Florin shrugged. “The king suggested it. He said I’d learn why when he presented the charter to us.”
“He’s giving us a mission,” Islif said flatly. “Go and get yourselves killed in the Stonelands, and mind you report in to Lord Winter along the way.”
Jhessail rolled her eyes. “Grimtongue! A little cheer, please!”
Islif drew herself up, strode over to Jhessail, loomed over the flamehaired mage—and put a wide, idiotic smile onto her face, all teeth and oh-so-wide eyes. Then she let it fall right off her face again, leaving her looking as stern as ever.
“Soooo,” Semoor drawled, regarding the ceiling. “What really happened between you and the lovely Lady Narantha Crownsilver during your little walk in the woods? It gets cold out there in the dark night, I’m thinking …”
“You’re thinking? Does divine Lathander know? He might just change his mind about having a dangerous thinker among his ordained priesth—”
“Sabruin, gallant Falconhand, and answer my impertinent question.”
Florin wrapped his arms around the back of a vacant chair, leaned his chin on them, and told his friends, “Nothing romantic or lustful happened between us. Nothing. And you can cast spells on me to be sure of that, if you’d like. Beauteous she may be, but she was a raging spitfire most of the time we spent trudging through the trees—and I’m not so addled by raging lusts that I want to have my pisspipe sliced off and my neck stretched in a hangman’s noose, for all to watch. I can’t think noble lords and ladies are too pleased with anyone who ruins one of their daughters.”
“Unless they happen to be King Azoun,” Semoor murmured.
“Silence!” Islif snapped. “All the realm may know about that, but ’tis surely the act of a death-welcoming fool to talk about it!”
“Yes, Semoor,” Jhessail said reprovingly. “Try to behave yourself for the next day or two until we have the charter. Then, being an anointed adventurer, you can revert to your usual charmingly discreet self.”
“After w
e get over the border into Sembia,” Islif growled. “Where we can all walk away from you if your overclever mouth gets us into real trouble.”
Semoor gave her a quizzical look. “You’re worried about ‘real trouble’? When we’re going to be chartered adventurers? Just what do you think chartered adventurers do, anyhail?”
Then he looked pained. “Behave myself for an entire day or two? Whatever will I do?”
“Hear ye! Hear ye all! Good people of Espar, His Valiant Majesty Azoun, King of all this fair land of Cormyr, is pleased to grant a right royal charter this day, upon this spot and before all your eyes! Attend, all!”
The herald of Espar was in fine form, his voice rich and loud without seeming harsh. Effortlessly it rolled out across the crowd—a close-packed throng that filled the village green shoulder to shoulder, and extended right back to the inn and smithy walls, entirely blocking the Way of the Dragon.
The Watchful Eye had gained a splendid new porch for the occasion, hurled up by High Horn’s best carpenters in a day—and standing on it beside the herald, sweating a little uncomfortably in the sun, stood four young Esparran, the friends Doust Sulwood, Semoor Wolftooth, Jhessail Silvertree, and Islif Lurelake. Idle younglings of scant regard a few days ago, but objects of intense curiosity and bright if fleeting fame, now. Semoor gave many winks and grins, and Islif glowered out at the crowd as if she’d happily hew the lot of them to the ground, while Doust and Jhessail kept their hands firmly behind their backs, so they could fidget largely unnoticed.
On the other side of the four friends stood Lord Hezom, the King’s Lord of Espar, resplendent in a new greatsleeves doublet, half-cloak, and bright bold hose. He smiled out across the crowd in genuine pleasure, and many goodfolk of Espar shared his feelings, for the king was paying for the feast they’d soon share and the mead and ale they’d soon down, and royal coins had already given many of them—whose homes fronted on the green—bright new roofs and balconies, where Purple Dragon bowmen were stationed watchfully. Others had rented out their every last room and slept in their own stables, and were thanking the gods—and Florin Falconhand—fervently for the windfall of much-needed coins.
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