Cormyr

Chapter 15: The Common Room

Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)

“It’s best not to ask what’s in the sausage rolls, lad, but by the gods, they’re good!”

“Oh?” Dauneth tried to sound unconcerned and cosmopolitan, as befitted a nobleman and a warrior. It didn’t work.

“First time in Suzail, lad?” the merchant asked heartily. “Well, I’ll grant you’re as hungry as a war-horse after the ride from High Horn, but let me warn you away from the sweet-spiced fish rolls they seem to like in this town. Sickening things! And I suppose while I’m about it, I’d best give you a warning. If you bite straight into a sausage roll like those you’re drooling at, while it’s steaming like that, it’s your own burnt mouth and tongue you’ll be tasting-for the better part of a tenday!”

“My thanks to you, goodman…?” Dauneth said, more to slow the flood of advice than to learn the man’s name.

“Rhauligan. Glarasteer Rhauligan, sir, dealer in turret tops and spires, stone and wood both-you order ‘em, and we’ll build ‘em-fast and cheap, and they won’t fall down!” There was a cadence to his words, and they sounded like an oft-repeated slogan. Dauneth wondered just how much trade the man actually did. But the neatly bearded trader was raising a wintry brow and saying, “Say… does your castle need a bit of spire work, now?”

“Ah, no, actually,” Dauneth said. “It’s not my castle to expand or alter, at any rate.”

“And you are…?”

The tall, gawky man sighed inwardly as he heard himself saying, “Dauneth Marliir.” If this garrulous merchant really did go around the realm fixing towers, Dauneth was probably earning himself a wagonload of questions.

“Of the Marliirs of Arabel?”

Sigh. Here it came. “Yes,” Dauneth said firmly. “Ah-is this our hostess?”

Rhauligan cast a look over his shoulder. “Yes, that’s Braundlae, right enough, but if that’s what you want, lad, you’ve come to the wrong place! The red lantern est-“

“I came in here for some food,” Dauneth said rather desperately. “Standing in line after line up at the court for hours is hungry work, and hard on the feet, too!”

The merchant whistled sympathetically. “Been up at court, have you? Gods, but the place must be buzzing like a ruptured wasps’ nest right now!”

“There did seem to be a lot of whispering and people glancing around and then ducking behind doors, yes,” Dauneth agreed, “and people rushing about, too-but isn’t that what usually goes on?”

“Gods, no, lad. If you’re up at court and want to show everyone how important you are, you don’t rush anywhere, see? You saunter unconcernedly and wear a little half-smile, like you know all sorts of secrets that these poor fools around you don’t, because they’re not half so important and close to the crown as you are. See?”

“I’m beginning to, yes,” Dauneth said, keeping weariness from his voice with the skill born of long schooling. The Marliirs had fought against Dhalmass at Marsember, had been part of the Redlance Rising, had made the mistake of backing the regent Salember, and had gotten into more sordid troubles with the Keepers of the Royal Rolls over taxes since. The family had to acquire certain skills merely to keep their necks away from executioners’ swords and their behinds out of dungeon cells. Smooth talking, superb acting, and a heightened sensitivity to the attitudes of others were prominent among these. Dauneth had acted the part of a gentle, considerate young man of breeding for so long that he’d become one somehow. One of chief skills of young nobles-if they wanted to become old nobles, that is-was the ability to mask boredom behind feigned interest and attention.

“If the dust grows on your eyeballs, lad, you’re doing it wrong,” the merchant whispered loudly across the table as he bounced a friendly fist off Dauneth’s forearm. Dauneth winced, the man had seen right through his politeness and had actually echoed a phrase one of his uncles had used once while teaching him how to sleep while appearing to be still awake. It had served him well with family-hired tutors ever since. “So the Marliirs are trying to get back in the royal good graces, eh? Well, they picked a fine time to send you here, what with the king dying and all!”

“I heard he died yesterday, and they’re just keeping it a secret,” the servingwoman said as she came up behind Dauneth with a platter loaded with two large, misted tankards, a round loaf of hardbread, and several covered pots and dishes. She set it down with a clatter.

“Gods, no, Braundlae,” the merchant said. “If the Purple Dragon was dead, all the up-noses like the lad here-ho, beg pardon, lad, I didn’t mean ill of you and your house, mind-wouldn’t have anyone to line up to talk to and arrange all those last dirty deals with before His Highness croaks!”

“Hah!” Braundlae put her hands on her hips. “Do you think the High Wizard keeps the place crawling with war wizards for nothing? They keep poor old Azoun’s eyes and mouth moving and a voice coming out and suchlike with magic, and all the high-and-mighties go away thinking they’ve made an agreement with the king, when all they’ve really done is-Oh, sir,” she broke off, turning to Dauneth. “I took the liberty of bringing you our home brew and some sausage rolls, as I heard Master Rhauligan praising them to you earlier! Would you like something different?”

“Ah, no, no. This’ll be fine, thank you, good lady,” Dauneth said hastily. The woman gave him a merry smile and bent in a court curtsey, saying to Rhauligan, “You’ll note the lad called me a ‘good lady,’ Rhauly. Good manners might not come amiss from you on occasion, mind!”

“Ah,” the merchant said, bending forward over the table with a leer, “but then the lad doesn’t know you as well as I do, does he? ‘Good,’ aye, I’ll grant that, but-“

He ducked the playful snap of her apron with the ease of long practice, snatching up the lid of his bowl in mock fear to serve as a buckler. Dauneth glanced idly at the contents of the bowl and then stared down at them in horrified fascination. The merchant caught sight of the look on the young man’s face and followed it down to his bowl.

“What’s the matter, lad? Never seen eels in mint-and-lime hot sauce before? If your family was originally from Marsember, by the dragon, you must have eaten eels once or tw-“

“Oh, I have,” Dauneth said faintly, “though they’re no favorite of mine. But I’ve never seen anyone eat them alive and still moving-“

The merchant gaped at him. “But that’s the best way, lad! Why, of course you disliked eels if they brought ‘em to you all dead and cold and rubbery! Why-“

“I think,” Dauneth said firmly, “that I’ll take my sausage rolls upstairs…”

“Why, yes, do that, lad-and when I’m done chasing these ‘ere eels around the table, I’ll bring you a second tankard. How’s that?”

“Splendid,” Dauneth said through clenched teeth. “Simply splendid.” He’d grown quite pale, and at the temples his skin almost matched the color of his gray eyes. “I’ll see you then…”

He rose hastily and clumsily, the heavy broadsword at his hip banging into his chair. He turned to leave with a dignity that was somewhat spoiled by his having to turn back to the table to take up his forgotten tankard, then strode to the stairs.

“Sir!” Braundlae’s voice was friendly but swift. “That’s a full tankard of our best Black Bottom, and three piping-hot sausage rolls with Silver Dragon Sauce, too! How will you be paying for that?”

Dauneth turned. “Oh. Sorry I thought that upstairs…”

“Is the Roving Dragon, sir. Caladarea’s place-not mine. I’m sure she’ll not mind you bringing in food that’s better than she’ll ever serve, but I’ll certainly mind if you walk out with it!”

“That was not my intention, lady,” the tall, gangly youth said stiffly, trying to fish in his belt purse with a hot covered dish in one hand and a tankard in the other. The purse looked heavy both Braundlae and the merchant noted professionally. He plucked out three coins and laid them in her palm. Braundlae peered at them rather suspiciously and then gasped.

“Three golden lions! Sir, one will settle everything ten times over! I’ll have to go hunting, this early, for coins enough to change-“

“Keep it,” Dauneth told her quickly. “And cover Master Rhauligan’s bill with it, if you would. Only don’t let him bring any eels upstairs.” And without looking back, he dashed up the stairs, bumping his elbow on the rail and his scabbarded sword on several steps along the way.

“Yes, sir! May the gods smile on you this month, and the next, too!” Braundlae said enthusiastically. When the young man was gone around the bend in the stair, she turned to Rhauligan and murmured, “Is he crazed?”

“No, just rich,” Glarasteer Rhauligan said cheerfully. “Probably one of the richest young men in all Cormyr right now. Of noble Marsembian blood, here to ingratiate himself at court.”

Braundlae lifted eyebrows that had seen much travel in their day and said, ‘Well, when there’s a healthy king again-or a new one-it won’t take long for the throne to smile upon him if he throws money about like that.” She stared down at the coins in her hand as if she still couldn’t quite believe it, which was the honest thing to do, because she couldn’t.

“No, wench, it’s loyalty the Obarskyrs value, not money. Loyalty.”

Braundlae lifted her eyes from the gleaming gold to stare at him, and then up at the empty stairs where the young noble had gone. “Disloyal? Him? I’ll not believe that.”

Rhauligan shrugged. “He just gave you far too much money, of course you’ll not think ill of him. What matters is how many young noblemen far shrewder than him buy friendships and allies daily.”

“I’m sure,” the hostess said cynically. “Besides, who’s to say the king he’ll be kneeling to will be an Obarskyr?”

“There’s Tanalasta,” said the merchant, “and Alusair.”

“Both hide from the task,” replied the hostess, “one in her account books, the other behind the sword. I repeat, will the next king be an Obarskyr at all?”

“How could it not be and this land still be Cormyr?”

Braundlae shrugged. “One family does not a realm make-or keep. There’re no secret male heirs locked up in palace closets so far as I know, so if the king and the baron go down, as everyone’s saying they will or in fact have already, there can’t help but be another line of kings on the Dragon Throne! Now, once someone has taken the crown, I don’t know how long they’ll be able to hold on, once all the nobles see how one of their own is lording it over them, and they start thinking about how easy it’d be to supplant them in turn.”

“Have you hired a mage to fireproof your shutters yet?” the merchant asked quietly.

Braundlae frowned at him. “What? Why d’you prattle on about…” She fell silent, looking troubled.

“As you said,” Rhauligan said in a low voice, “once one noble takes the crown, what’s to stop another from trying for it? We’ll have daggers in the alleys and then swords in the streets, until armies are riding into Suzail to make this noble or that one our sovereign! And the court is right across the flaming road from here, Brauna! Where do you think the wars’ll be fought?”

“Oh, gods,” the hostess whispered, her face gone pale, her apron bunched up to cover her lips.

“It could go on for years, with young hotheads riding around the realm declaring for this family or that, tearing the realm apart, with no crops to take in and no laws to shelter us. You’d better hope old Azoun doesn’t die!”

“‘Young hotheads’? Oh, some noble sons are like that, to be sure, but this Dauneth, now, was perfectly nice!”

“Yes, and his family has been so disloyal to the Obarskyrs that the Royal Magician’s probably measuring out dungeon manacles for him right this minute.”

“Him?”

“Indeed. His family’s rebelled against the crown a time or two, forgot to pay their fair handfuls of coins in tax to the throne… and rode with bloodied sword at the orders of Salember the Serpent!”

“And they kept their heads? How does he dare come here at all?”

“Why do you think young noblemen like him are coming here now, with the king dying? They say he was poisoned. Anyone like this Dauneth who’s been here a month or so could have done it, or known it was going to happen and hovered like a vulture to seize whatever power came loose for the taking. Soon the city’ll be full of all the other young noble sons, come to join the circling cloud around the king-to-be-corpse. You won’t be able to ladle sauce fast enough to keep up, Brauna!”

The hostess looked at him grimly, and then said sourly, “You make the days ahead seem dark indeed! Finished your eels yet, Doomtongue?”

Rhauligan grinned at her in answer and opened his mouth wide. A last eel quivered and wriggled on his tongue, seeking freedom.

Braundlae shuddered despite herself and flung out a pointing hand. “Get you gone!” she ordered. “Up into the Dragon-with a fresh tankard for that nice young man!”

The Roving Dragon, as Rhauligan had informed Dauneth earlier, was currently the most popular bun-and-ale for working Suzailans to stop in at, once a day or so. For years, it had seemed there was no room left on the Promenade for a relaxed, reasonably priced establishment that could serve food quickly, where people could sit at tables and talk-gossip, business, court politics, or whatever.

Caladarea Ithbeck had changed all that. Newly arrived from Chessenta a season ago, she saw the lack of the sort of place she liked to eat at, its windows overlooking somewhere busy and important, and saw something much brighter: If one rented out the upper floor apartments of a row of shops, and then joined them into one long series of private little rooms by knocking doorways through the connecting walls, one suddenly had a large new dining hall right on the Promenade. Add a few very exclusive guest apartments for visiting nobles or rich merchants, make peace with a tavern or two by letting them take the lion’s share of the low-bottle drinking trade and in return getting their stairs to serve as entrances, make sure that the food was simple and good-and the Roving Dragon was a sure success. It was seldom, even in the slow midmorning and waning noon hour periods, that the rooms with the best views had fewer than a dozen patrons lazily sipping at cider and making meat tarts or soup last as long as they could.

There were a dozen in the Snout Room-the sunny chamber at the east end of the Dragon, with its view of the royal gardens past the end of the sprawling court buildings-right now.

Two merchants were chuckling together at one table, a veritable forest of tankards rising from around their elbows. Another, leaner merchant sat with a smoothly amorous lady who was probably getting paid for her caresses. A table of six priests of Tymora were leaning noses together, speaking in low and excited tones-no doubt about how deliciously risky, and therefore favored by the Goddess of Luck, the present time was in Cormyr, with the king’s life hanging by a magical (none doubted) thread. A mercenary captain sat silently at a small corner table, his booted feet occupying its only other chair, obviously waiting for someone. His breast badge was a wolf leaping into view between two trees.

And there was Dauneth Marliir. He’d been staring at the mercenary’s badge from time to time, and at other times gazing at the head of the stair that led down to Braundlae’s Best, and devoting the rest of his time to the huge tankard, which seemed all but empty now. The ale had a rough-edged, smoky taste, but it was good. He licked his lips in consideration. The best thing about this day so far, in fact. For all his patience, he had not yet had a chance to see the dying Azoun in the flesh, his progress in the long lines halted at the next-to-last chamber.

He could still remember the only time he’d seen the king, as bright and as clear as if it had happened only yesterday and not over a dozen summers ago when he took Arabel from Gondegal’s forces. A bearded, laughing man, standing tall in his saddle in a leather forester’s jerkin with his hands spread wide to acknowledge the cheers of his people. Power and grace and surging vitality, the sense that all the might of Cormyr was flowing into that man as he rode past, every inch the rightful and natural king of the Forest Kingdom.

And a young, excited Dauneth had roared out Azoun’s name and waved his hands and wept along with all the rest, there in the streets of Arabel, and felt at one with men he’d never met in his life before. Old warriors who walked slowly and proudly toward the sunset of that day as if they wanted it never to come, while they told and retold, almost reverently, tales of when they’d knelt to Azoun or talked with him or fought under him, and they stood unashamed while tears ran down their wrinkled cheeks and dripped from their mustaches. He’d known from their voices and the way they all looked from time to time down the road where the king had gone, hours before, that they shared the same heart-light feeling that he had, touched with wonder.

“Warmed by the reflected fire of the crown,” he’d heard a minstrel describe that feeling once. Whatever. To Dauneth, that laughing man spurring past on the magnificent horse would always be King Azoun, no matter what passing years and the poison or disease or whatever it was had done to the man now, and he would fight, even die if need be, in Azoun’s name because of that bright memory Let Cormyr always have such men riding across it, laughing and exultant, the Purple Dragon bright on their breasts, the sun smiling down, the- “Drunk already, lad? Should I let you have this second one, or ‘twould it be an act of kind charity to drink it all myself?”

Dauneth jerked back from that jovial voice to blink at Rhauligan, for a moment measuring one laughing man against another… and then surging Azoun on his horse was gone, and the loud, living, and very boisterous merchant was thunking two tankards as tall and as cold as the first pair down on the table and following them to a seat on the other side of the table, while calls came from across the room of, “Rhauly!” “You old snake!” “Where’re the two tankards you owe me?” and “So who’s your friend, Old Rolling-guts?”

Glarasteer Rhauligan grinned at the room in general and bellowed, “Ho, Tessara! Got a kiss for me yet?”

The amorous lady untwined herself from the merchant enough to lift a slim, black-scabbarded longsword into view and say, not unkindly, “In here, Old Shortcoin!”

“Ah,” the merchant said, leaning forward, “but what if I showed you a man just swimming in golden lions, eh?”

“I’d show you the next man to become your victim,” Tessara told him promptly, “but as you’re not likely to do any such thing, why don’t you introduce your friend-or is he just the dupe who paid for your tankard?”

“Well, yes,” Rhauligan admitted, sinking down behind his ale with a rueful smile and a wave of surrender. Amid general snorts and exclamations of mirth, he added, “But I’ll do as you bid… and do it proper, too. Know, Dauneth, that the lady with the sharp blade and sharper tongue is Tessara, now company-for-hire but once a pirate on the sea that roils past the very docks of Suzail.”

Tessara essayed a small, swaying bow and smile, without leaving the arms of the lean merchant, whom Rhauligan loudly introduced as Ithkur Onszibar, an independent long-haul caravan merchant from Amn hoping to find a business partner in Suzail to anchor the eastern end of his trade route. The man winced at this shrewd intelligence, whereupon the others in the Snout Room-save for the staring, disapproving table of priests and the silent, watchful mercenary-all roared with laughter.

Rhauligan made a mock bow of his own and identified the other two merchants as Gormon Turlstars, a dealer in blades and fine-tempered tools from Impiltur-the grim one-and Athalon Darvae, a textiles dealer from Saerloon who’d been thinking of moving to Suzail but was now having second thoughts. That observation brought as big a wince, and laugh, as Rhauligan’s daring sally about the caravan master. When the jovial merchant introduced Dauneth Marliir, however, there were a few whistles and the room-the entire room, Dauneth noted uncomfortably-grew silently attentive.

“In town to watch an old foe die?” Tessara asked boldly, but Rhauligan saw the sudden flush of crimson cross the face of his newfound companion, from ear to ear to fingertips, and made a swift interjection.

“Now, now. How can the lad be doing that when he’s but newly arrived in Suzail and doesn’t even know what’s going on? I’d like to hear the latest myself, O most masterful of gossips and spies!”

The room erupted in chatter as all four of Rhauligan’s acquaintances spoke at once. Dauneth thankfully covered his face with his tankard and thought about how good the Black Bottom ale was beginning to taste. The cacophony went on for some time, as none of the four, once started, had any intention of yielding to silence, but in the end it was the grim, stolid sword dealer who by dint of ponderous patience went on speaking after the others ran out of breath.

“… and the Royal Wizard continues to meet with every noble that he can pry out of the backwoods,” Turlstars concluded, his eyes rising suddenly to transfix Dauneth as if on a sword blade. The young noble almost choked on his ale.

As soon as he could safely speak, Dauneth filled the lengthening, expectant silence with the words, “Ah-no summons came to us from court that I know of, but several of my elders had been telling me for a season or more that it was high time I presented myself to the king, and I was told rather firmly about a month back that now was the time.”

“About a month back,” Darvae, the cloth merchant, echoed meaningfully, gesturing at Dauneth with his tankard.

Tessara snorted. “You see conspiracies and cabals under your trencher every evening, Athalon, and under your bed every morning, too!”

“You can get under his bed?” Rhauligan murmured. “This I must see!” The look Tessara gave him in return, amid the rising chuckles, had edges to it.

The caravan master Onszibar cleared his throat and said, “Athalon’s inference is, however, an interesting idea. Is this affliction of the Obarskyrs the result of a plan so wide-ranging that someone’s thought to drag all the young nobles of the realm here to Suzail to provide possible suspects for the attack on the royals?”

“Or to gather together nobles who are in on the plot,” Rhauligan put in eagerly, “without rivals, such as the other noble houses, noticing amid all the arrivals?”

“Or,” Tessara said softly, “to bring the nobles together so that rivals are within easy reach, so whoever’s behind this can more easily cut down foes and folk of families not in their favor?”

Caught in the center of a web of thoughtful glances, Dauneth felt suddenly that he was all too alone in a city of watching, waiting eyes where many blades were seeking his innards, rather than the exciting, bustling heart of the realm where one young Marliir in dusty boots was unknown and ignored. An unsettling view. He sighed and took another quaff from his tankard, hoping no one would see that his hands had started, ever so slightly, to tremble.

“But who has the wits to plan so deftly and bring Azoun to the edge of death and hold him there for so long?” Turlstars asked, bringing on a tense moment of silence that was ended-reluctantly-by the cloth merchant.

“Vangerdahast,” Darvae said, waving one of his sour-sweet fish tarts for emphasis, “and his war wizards.”

Rhauligan snorted. “If they wanted the throne,” he said flatly, “they could’ve had it years ago, without all this drama. A few quick spells and a mind link or a crowned puppet wearing the face of a tracelessly-disposed-of Obarskyr, and none of us the wiser. This feels like the work of someone who’s had to be very clever to avoid the war wizards.”

There were nods at this, but the caravan master said, “I can’t think our High Wizard’s behind this either, but he is the busiest man in the kingdom right now, flitting from one back room to another with scarce a stop for the chamberpot in between.”

More nods. “With most of the important nobles of the realm,” Tessara murmured.

Turlstars chuckled and waved at Dauneth with his tankard. “He’ll be getting to you soon, lad, just see if he doesn’t.”

“I’ll be pleased to assure him of my loyalty to the crown,” Dauneth said rather stiffly.

“Ah,” Tessara said, leaning forward in her chair to waggle a warning finger at him, her elbow on one knee, “but what if he comes to ask you to join in a task or two that leads to a new order in Cormyr?”

“A kingdom ruled by wizards?” Rhauligan said in disbelief. “The Sembians’d never stand for it. They’d hire every ambitious mageling they could find to smash such a realm!”

“Only to find their hirelings wiping out Vangerdahast’s lot and then taking their places! Wizards with power never wish to give up that power, be it magical or political.” The cloth merchant Darvae set down his own drink with a solid thunk to underscore his point.

“I’d not want to be a mage that tried any such thing,” Ithkur Onszibar said dryly, “in a world that holds the Red Wizards of Thay, the Zhentarim, and the mage kings of Halruaa. Once the mage realm is built, what’s to stop anyone with greater spells from taking it over from within?”

Turlstars waved a dismissive hand. “All this is hard-flying fancy, people. All we know is that Duke Bhereu has died, the king and Baron Thomdor linger near death despite wagonloads of priests and winged carpetfuls of war wizards laboring night and day, and our Royal Magician is trotting around meeting privately with various nobles, while all the younger sons of those same noble families, and all their elders who like to play at politics, converge on Suzail as if free dukedoms are being handed out at street corners.”

“As indeed they soon may be,” Athalon Darvae murmured.

Turlstars ignored the comment and continued. “Some folk think the wizard is just binding loyalties to the crown with threats and promises and making all the up-noses feel personally important. Others think he’s adding heads to his own little organization.”

“Or handing out orders to a cabal that’s long since established, and using the other little talks to hide that, or even to lay little tracing or thought-probing spells on the nobles who aren’t in his camp,” Tessara put in, with a meaningful nod of her head in Dauneth’s direction.

“But why all of this?” Rhauligan protested, waving his hands. One of them held a tankard, but as far as Dauneth could tell, the merchant had emptied it already. “We’ve all heard about the suit of armor that can heal and purify the man who sleeps in it and the spells that can grow new kings from a few pieces of the flesh of old ones.”

“New kings for old!” Tessara called softly, grinning. “New kings for old!”

“Stow it,” Rhauligan told her, not unkindly, and continued. “There are said to be thick-piled webs of safeguard spells on all senior Obarskyrs and heirs, as well as on the palace and the court and the royal hunting lodges and houses… and outback privies, for all I know! Have they all failed at once?”

“If a traitor among the wizards worked carefully to avoid detection,” Tessara said gently, “I’d be surprised if magic that is done could not also be undone.” Turlstars nodded grimly.

“I’ve heard,” put in Darvae, “that Lady Laspeera and some of the other war wizards started searching the vaults under the palace for a cure, but Princess Tanalasta had them turned out and ordered the under-cellars sealed.”

“Seems as though she wants dear daddy to die,” Tessara muttered.

Darvae spread his hands in a what-do-I-know gesture. “She said what struck down the king may have come from there, and it was best that such perils stay shut away until ‘the realm is out of danger.’ She must know what the vaults hold better than any of us.”

“The Doom of the Obarskyrs,” the caravan master intoned somberly. “The armories of the war wizards, full of stolen spells and locked lich tomes and strange things that flash and whir about but haven’t yet been probed for their secrets. Iron statues that walk. The Cursed Crowns. The meeting room of the Sword Heralds. The-“

“Lost Wyvern of Menacha. Yes, yes, and the stuffed remains of the Obarskyrs’ adversaries,” Turlstars said dismissively. “We’ve all heard the legends, and they’re just more flying fancy. I suspect that a lot of the talk I’m hearing around Suzail is the stuff of dreams, too… but we may as well wade through it…”

“Especially as some of it is really rich,” Darvae agreed with a grin. “Would you believe that Gondegal the Lost King has been seen in Marsember?”

“High Horn, I heard,” Tessara said quickly. “And he’s behind all this!”

“He and a hitherto unknown descendant of evil Prince Regent Salember!” Onszibar put in.

“What?” Turlstars asked sarcastically. “Not Salember himself?”

“Well,” Tessara said, leaning forward to speak in low, urgent tones, “you may all laugh about wild rumors, but I was told by a friend I trust well that Lady Laspeera of the war wizards-second in rank of them all, after Vangerdahast himself-has disappeared. Some in the palace are saying she may have been entombed alive in the palace vaults when the Purple Dragons sealed them, at the command of the princess.”

“That may just be true,” Turlstars said thoughtfully, but Darvae made a rude sound of disagreement.

“I doubt soldiers as busy as they are right now could find the time to seal off all the ways a wizard might find to get out of a cellar,” Darvae pronounced.

“Busy?” Rhauligan pounced.

The cloth merchant grinned wryly. “They’re saying down the Promenade that there’s a private war going on between Purple Dragons loyal to Tanalasta and those cleaving to the old wizard, Vangerdahast. Most of the court officials, like the sages Dimswart and Alaphondar, are supporting the wizard, but one wing of the palace is supposed to be awash in blood… entire hallways choked with armor-clad corpses.”

“Some folk have vivid imaginations,” Tessara murmured. “I heard that Alaphondar the sage was slain defending the queen from assassins, and the queen lies on her deathbed mere feet from her husband.”

“But that’s Just it!” protested Onszibar. “What do we know to help us sort out the fancy from what’s actually going on in the palace? What do we really know?”

Gormon Turlstars nodded, saying heavily, “On the way here I heard two nobles discussing where to hide. They think someone is stabbing all the nobles who dare to go to see Tanalasta and leaving them to die in the palace or to crawl out!”

Darvae nodded. “I heard that, too. It seems one made it as far as the royal gardens yesterday before collapsing.”

“I can crown all,” Rhauligan said grandly, holding up a hand for attention. “A guard in the palace who’s been stationed close to the dying king says that the priests have been defeated by whatever ails him, and that they plan to keep our Azoun on the throne by using dark magic to make him undead!”

Turlstars snorted. “Even if you believed the priests could agree with each other to do that, do you think the people would stand for it?”

“Would they accept a regency where Vangerdahast rules, after marrying Queen Filfaeril?” Tessara asked. “I’ve heard that rumor several times.”

“Yes, yes,” Turlstars said disgustedly. “And the Purple Dragons, the war wizards, and the nobles are all planning to seize the throne. Red Wizards and Zhentarim have been seen openly walking the Promenade-“

“Well, they have!” Rhauligan said sharply. “I myself saw a man I know to be a Zhent mageling! I’ve heard that a man walking north of the court, near the royal gardens, was seen to change shape! If that isn’t the work of a wizard…”

Tessara sighed. “So the realm is falling apart as we watch, and loyal Vangerdahast is to blame, either because he’s causing it-“

“Or he’s not stopping it,” Turlstars agreed heavily.

Dauneth had been sitting silent behind his tankard, listening with growing horror… and then, slowly, a rising anger. How cynical these folk were-all of them! Did the king’s life mean nothing? Did they believe no word spoken by anyone of the court? He saw again Azoun laughing in his saddle, arms spread wide, and heard a voice saying angrily, “From where I come from, the word ‘loyal’ is not an empty joke. The crown is worth upholding, worth fighting for. It is what makes us better than the money-grubbing Sembians or the savages of Tunland. Have a care for your words, for I will fight to see that King Azoun’s name remains unsullied!”

The young noble blinked. They were all staring at him. He had half risen from his seat. It seemed that the angry voice had been his own.

“Ah,” he said in some confusion, noting that even Glarasteer Rhauligan was gaping at him, and sat down again. “What I mean to say is that Lord Vangerdahast is older than the mountains. Why would he be a traitor? It sounds to me like he’s just trying to keep the court running until the king is well again.”

Tessara’s dark eyes narrowed. “That’s a peculiar way for a Marliir to talk-supporting the crown.”

“What do you mean?” Dauneth asked softly, feeling a trembling rage surging up in him. Without thinking, his hand reached for his blade.

His fingers met the cold edge of a drawn sword, blocking his way to his own scabbard. Tessara’s eyes were as wintry as the steel under his fingertips as she said, “Does your family not speak of such things as their war with King Dhalmass? Or the Prince Regent Salember? Or do they prefer not to deal with past defeats?”

“I-” Dauneth began hotly, and then fell silent because he realized he had nothing to say. His family didn’t speak of such matters, and this woman looked as if she knew exactly what she was talking about… as well as how to handle a sword. He’d not even seen her draw the blade that she was now slowly pulling back, tip lifted a little to catch his gaze as a warning. He looked past it and into her eyes, and suddenly he thought how beautiful she looked, hard and confident, and…

He knew be was blushing again and managed to say, “Lady, I meant no offense to anyone here. I was simply shocked by the way all of you-“

“Spoke lightly of the realm?” Rhauligan said roughly. “Lad, that doesn’t mean we don’t love it!”

The short silence that followed his words was broken by a drawl from Darvae. “Well, it seems the young high-boots is a panther, after all.”

Someone started to laugh, but fell silent. The entire Snout Room joined in the sudden, tense stillness.

A man had come into the room, walking alone, a stout man in a plain brown robe, bound about at the waist with a tasseled rope of the palest mauve. He looked about, his brown eyes almost stern, and Dauneth felt as if the man’s brief glance had named, measured, and taken inventory of all the clothing and gear of a certain young Marliir.

Though many would not have called the paunchy, bareheaded man in robes impressive, everyone in the Roving Dragon had fallen silent-and stayed that way as Vangerdahast, the Royal Magician of Cormyr, went to the table where the mercenary captain was sitting. They exchanged wordless nods, and the wizard sat down, favoring the room with a wry little smile as he did so. Abruptly the sounds of chatter, creaking cartwheels, and shouting street vendors filled the room. The sounds of the Promenade outside, somehow brought in to swirl about…

Magic. Of course. To keep others from overhearing. Dauneth gaped at the stout wizard, who was leaning forward, elbows on the mercenary’s table. They talked briefly and quietly, then nodded and rose together, striding out without looking around or acknowledging a tentative hail from Rhauligan. The sounds of the street went out with them, leaving the end room of the Roving Dragon silent again.

It was Tessara who broke the stillness, asking in a low voice, “Now, why does the Lord High Wizard of Cormyr need to hire mercenaries? To fight off rebellious nobles? Or Purple Dragons?”

“Yes… and Dragons loyal to whom?” Turlstars said grimly.

“We’ll know soon enough, I fear,” Rhauligan said almost wearily. He looked up at Dauneth. “You picked a bad time to come to Suzail, lad.”

The young noble shrugged, affecting a confidence he did not feel. “If the realm needs me..”

Tessara smiled suddenly. “It saves riding here, you mean?” She shook her head and added, “You may be called on all too soon. The realm needs strong, orderly rule, or your fellow nobles, locked in feuds and rivalries that go back past all our memories, will tear it apart like hungry wolves.”

“I’ve never seen darker days in Suzail,” Turlstars said heavily. “What I want to know most of all is how can the realm survive?”