Death of the Dragon

23

They were sitting on the veranda of the grand Crownsilver estate, three of them-Maniol Crownsilver himself, Duke Kastar Pursenose, and the Lady of Pearls, Bridgette Alamber-drinking merlot and staring out over the rolling grounds of the estate. The lands looked as though a rare freeze had drifted in from the north and overstayed the tolerance of its hosts. The pear orchards had withered to neat rows of twisted black skeletons, the much-vaunted flock of Silver-marsh sheep lay bloated and huffing in their brown pasture, and the vineyard had vanished beneath a snowy blanket of white mold.

“A pity about the vineyard, Manny,” said Lady Alamber, draining the last red drops from her glass. “There simply is no equal for the Silverhill merlot. I shall miss it, I’m afraid.”

“We still have a barrel or a hundred in the cellar.” Maniol drained the last of the ewer’s contents into Lady Alamber’s glass and set the empty container on the table edge, where an anonymous hand in a white glove took it away to be refilled. “I’ll have a cask sent over for you.”

“You’re too kind.”

“Not at all,” said Maniol. “All I ask is that you keep it away from your magic.”

“You may rest assured,” said Lady Alamber. “It would be a pity to have such a fine vintage spoiled by one of these ghazneth things. Perhaps I’ll even accept the princess’s offer and send my magic to the castle for safekeeping.”

The mockery in her voice drew a sardonic chuckle from both men, and the anonymous hand returned the ewer to the table. Duke Pursenose offered his glass to Maniol to be refilled.

“Tell me, what are we going to do about this Goldsword business?” he asked.

“Do?” Maniol poured for the duke. “The same thing we always do, of course-wait until the matter sorts itself out.”

“Really, I don’t know what the princess could have been thinking,” said Lady Alamber. “It’s bad enough to sleep with a petty noble, but to marry him?”

“And a Cormaeril at that,” agreed Maniol. “Was she trying to make allies for Goldsword?”

“Still, there are those who feel she showed nerve, and who admire her candor,” said Pursenose. “With the setbacks in the north, they say she has been showing leadership.”

Maniol nodded and poured for himself. “The Hardcastles and Rallyhorns-and the Wyvernspurs, as well… Now that they have the old Cormaeril estates, they’ve become a family to be dealt with.”

“Precisely the point.” Lady Alamber drained her glass again. “On the one hand, she’s produced an heir.” She held one hand out and lowered it dramatically. “On the other hand-it’s a Cormaeril.” She held out the other hand and lowered it. “There’s no telling who’s going to win this thing.”

“That is hardly important, my dear,” Maniol said, refilling her glass. “What is important is that we don’t lose in it.”

“In normal times, yes,” said Pursenose, “but with these dreadful ghazneths running about tearing the place up and orcs and goblins loose to the north… it’s bad for the ledgers, and it could get worse. It might be less expensive if we simply choose a side.”

Maniol shook his head vigorously. “And what if we were to choose the wrong side? You saw what Azoun did to the Bleths and Cormaerils after the Abraxus Affair. I doubt the Sembians would be any more gracious if we were to side with Tanalasta against them.” He took a long pull from his glass, then made a sour face. “I say, the mold must have gotten to this cask.”

Pursenose had already noticed the same thing, but had not wanted to insult his host by complaining. “There does seem to be a touch of vinegar to it,” he said politely. “But it seems to me we’re overlooking the ghazneths in all this. Aren’t they the real enemy? If we let things go on like this, we’ll all lose our crops this year.”

“Which will only drive the price of our stores that much higher.” Maniol’s sly smile was tainted by a sudden flushing of the brow. “Nobody ever said it was easy to be a noble.” He grimaced at a sudden burning down in his belly, but managed to keep a polite smile as he turned to draw Lady Alamber back into the conversation. “Wouldn’t you agree, Bridgette?”

But Lady Alamber was not saying anything. She sat slumped in her chair, mouth agape and red-rimmed eyes staring into the sky. Bloody drool ran from the corner of her mouth and an acidic stench rose from the chair beneath her.

Duke Pursenose hissed in pain and the glass slipped from his hand to shatter against the stone patio. “I say, Maniol,” he gasped, slumping down in his own chair. “This wine does seem a bit… foul.”

Lord Crownsilver was past caring. His head hit the table with a hard thump, and a long, wet rasp gurgled from his mouth. Still gloved in white, the anonymous hand reached over and removed the ewer from the table.

From the King’s Balcony, the Royal Gardens resembled the camp of some vast army settling in for a long siege. It was filled with smoky pillars rising from small campfires, and old sails, waxed tarps, and anything else that could serve as a tent were strung between delicate fruit trees and carefully shaped topiaries. There were people everywhere, gathered together in small, miserable groups, sleeping alone under trees, milling about listlessly looking for lost children and familiar faces. The smell of food, squalor, and aromatic flowerbeds all merged into one, creating a greasy, too-sweet aroma. The cloying smell reminded Tanalasta of an old noblewoman whose nose had grown too accustomed to her own perfume.

“They started arriving last night,” Korvarr explained.

“We told them the park was not for sleeping, but they refused to leave. With the royal palace so close, they said it was the only safe place in Cormyr to sleep.”

“I’d be willing to argue the point with them,” Tanalasta said dryly. “Let me think on the matter for a time. At the moment, I’m more concerned about these assassinations.”

She turned to Sarmon the Spectacular, who sat behind her in a wheeled chair that Alaphondar had designed for him. Though she knew the wizard to be no more than fifty, he looked close to twice that age, with baggy eyes, wrinkled alabaster skin, and hair so thin she could see the liver spots on his scalp.

“You have been looking into this. What are your thoughts?”

“Lord Crownsilver and his guests bring the total number of assassinations this tenday alone to fifteen,” said Sarmon. “You really must have Lord Goldsword arrested before there are more.”

Tanalasta did not turn from the garden. “And we know he is responsible how?”

“By the fact that we aren’t,” said Sarmon. “He’s cutting your support from beneath you.”

“Her support?” asked Owden, standing as always at Tanalasta’s side. “I thought what made these killings strange is that all the victims are neutral.”

“Lord Goldsword is discovering how the nobles are leaning,” said Sarmon. “Clearly.”

“It is not so clear to me.” Tanalasta turned and looked down at the old mage. “How does he find out before we do?”

Sarmon’s wrinkled fingers tightened on the arms of his chair. “The war wizards cannot eavesdrop without drawing the attention of a ghazneth, Highness.”

“Of course. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t doing everything possible.” Though frustrated by the situation, Tanalasta refused to be short with a man who had lost fifty years of his life defending her. She turned to her mother. “But what of our other spies?”

The queen looked away uncomfortably and said, “I am afraid the loyalty of many is only to your father. There has been little to report.”

“What’s wrong with these people?” Tanalasta shook her head and looked out over the refugee camp. Not for the first time, she wished Vangerdahast were there to guide here-or at least to activate his own formidable network of spies. “Can’t they see how much danger Cormyr is in?”

“The only danger they see is their own,” said Alaphondar. “With the setbacks in the north, I fear Goldsword’s call to accept help from the Sembians is falling upon more receptive ears.”

Tanalasta slapped the balustrade. “We would not need Sembia’s help if our own nobles would pick up their swords and fight!” She paused a moment to collect herself, then looked to Owden and said, “I am beginning to think I should have married Dauneth. At least the nobles could not use my husband’s name to flout my authority.”

“They would find another excuse,” said Owden. “Do you really think they would become brave only because you lacked the courage to trust your own heart?”

The priest’s question allayed some of Tanalasta’s anger. “I suppose not.” She turned from the balustrade to her mother. “Speaking of cowards and traitors, have you had any luck locating the spy in our midst?”

Filfaeril met Tanalasta’s eyes evenly. “Of course,” she said. “I have known his identity for some time now.”

Tanalasta began to have a bad feeling about her mother’s conclusion. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“It would have accomplished nothing, except to alert the spy.”

Tanalasta bristled at her mother’s tone. “If you know who he is, then why don’t I have him in our dungeon?”

Filfaeril smiled. “Because spies can be very useful-especially the enemy’s spies.”

Tanalasta raised her brow and asked, “Would you care to elaborate?”

“Not at this time.” Filfaeril held Tanalasta’s eyes and did not look away.

“As you wish,” Tanalasta said, realizing she would just have to be patient. “I suppose we’re done here.”

“What about Lord Goldsword?” asked Sarmon. “You are going to arrest him?”

Tanalasta shook her head. “If I do that, it will look like I’m frightened of him. That’s no way to inspire confidence among our wavering nobles.”

Sarmon’s knuckles whitened on the arms of his chair, but he did not argue.

“A wise choice, but we must do something,” said Alaphondar. “With matters as bad as they are, the people are losing confidence. They need to see you act.”

Tanalasta glanced over the balustrade and cringed at the sight of all the people she was failing.

“What those people need, Alaphondar,” the princess said, “is food.”

The old sage frowned. “Of course they do, Highness, but what does that have to do with the matter at hand?”

“Nothing,” Tanalasta admitted. She continued to stare into the Royal Garden and suddenly knew what she had to do. “Nothing and everything. Clearly, I can do nothing to stop the ghazneths, and it may even be that I can do nothing to stop Goldsword, but there is one thing I can do.”

Alaphondar looked thoughtful. “And that would be?”

Tanalasta turned away from the balustrade. “I can feed my people.” She motioned Korvarr forward. “Lionar, send a man to fetch the cooks, and have the bailey set with tables. I’ll be down in a hour, and I expect a ladle to be ready for me.”

They met in a place in Suzail where such meetings took place, in the dimly lit store room of a shady tavern in a seedy quarter where no decent lord would be caught dead. That was why the six nobles had donned elaborately conceived costumes and disguised their faces with false beards, why they had dyed their hair and taken such care to be certain no one had followed them. The chamber stank of stale mead, mildewed wood, and unbathed sailors. It was surrounded on all sides by rooms kept vacant at the steep price of five gold crowns each, a price which had drawn even more attention to the group than the perfumed handkerchiefs they held over their noses as they approached their hidden refuge.

Frayault Illance was speaking, his dandy’s face ridiculously disguised by a purple eye patch and a trio of wax scars. “It’s the princess. Natig Longflail told me himself that he had it from Patik Corr that the princess’s own dressmaker told his wife that she had sewn no wedding dress for Tanalasta, and he said he would support no bastard on the Dragon Throne, be it the child of Rowen Cormaeril or Alaphondar Emmarask or Malik el Sami yn Nasser-then he was dead! Her spies found him out, I tell you, and it was her assassins who killed him.”

“And you are not blaming the princess just because she would have none of your soft talk, Frayault?” asked Tarr Burnig. A broad and burly man who normally wore a bushy red beard, he had cut off all his whiskers and disguised himself as the guard of a merchant caravel not long from the sea wars, and he was one of the few men there who looked the part he had assumed. “Natig told me that as long as the princess was married when she made the child, he’d stand with her, and to the Nine Hells with Emlar Goldsword and his Sembians.”

“And why couldn’t the Sembians be the ones behind these murders?” asked Lord Jurr Greenmantle. “It wouldn’t matter to them which way we were leaning at all. They could just keep killing us until there aren’t enough of us left to stand with Tanalasta, even if we wanted to. She’d have no choice but to ask for their help.”

The room erupted into a spirited debate, until a tall, dark-haired figure with a long beard rose and began banging his dagger on the table. “Enough! Enough!” The voice belonged to Elbert Redbow, who was neither tall nor dark, but wealthy enough to make himself appear that way for one night. “We could argue this all night, with every one of us coming to a different conclusion. I have even heard it said it could be the ghazneths-though I don’t know why they’d bother. Against them, the princess has proven ineffective enough as it is.”

“Hear, hear!” It was the first thing all six had agreed about all night.

“So have you a plan, Lord Redbow?”

“I do.” His voice grew even deeper, and he braced his knuckles on the table. “We must stop reacting and start acting.”

Again, there was agreement. “Hear, hear!”

“We’ll send a man to all the suspect parties,” explained Elbert. “He’ll pretend to be a craven coward in fear for his own life and claim I’ve called a secret meeting to divulge evidence about the identity of the assassin.”

“And we’ll know the identity of the cur by who shows up to kill us!” cried Tarr. “A grand plan, just grand!”

“As far as it goes,” said Frayault, “but what do we do after we find out?”

“You really are as slow as you look, aren’t you?” asked Lord Greenmantle. “We join them, of course!”

It was at this point that someone knocked on the door. The eyes of all six lords darted toward it, and Elbert Redbow had the presence of mind to snarl, “We said not to disturb us!”

“Yes, but you have not ordered a single mug of ale,” replied the tavern keeper. “How am I to pay for the room’s use? You must all buy at least one drink.”

Elbert snorted in disgust, then looked to the others. “What say you? I’m thirsty anyway.”

Lord Greenmantle nodded and stepped to the door. “A little refreshment never hurt anyone.”

Greenmantle had barely slipped the chair from under the latch when the door crashed open and an anonymous hand tossed something tiny into the room. Elbert Redbow cursed and hurled himself across the table to make a diving catch. Something crackled, and suddenly the room stank of oil and brimstone.

Lord Redbow cursed again, and the air went scarlet.