“Don’t crush it,” the tavern dancer murmured. “If anyone challenges your presence, show it to them and say you’ve been hired by a master you dare not reveal-Alusair, if they force an answer out of you-to give this message to the Lord High Wizard Vangerdahast personally. If you crawl straight ahead in the darkness, you’ll find steps leading up. Stand up then, but not before, and walk up the steps. There’s a door two paces beyond that, it opens inward by a pull-ring and leads to a space behind the hangings in the Blue Banners Room. Try not to be seen emerging, after you’re out, walk along unhurriedly but purposefully, as if you know where you’re going and belong there. Don’t run if a guard challenges you-oh, and try not to burn the place down or kill too many people. Good luck, young hope of the realm.”
And then a pair of soft, warm lips found his mouth in the darkness, kissed him fondly but thoroughly, and she was gone. Dauneth heard a soft swish of a shoe edge on stone, another small sound, and then nothing. He was alone in the darkness, under the very wall of the palace. His place and manner of entrance was probably not what anyone in House Marliir had intended. Dauneth grinned at that, made sure the scroll was secured, and crawled ahead into the darkness. The realm needed him, adventure awaited, and all that. Who was Emthrara, anyway?
“Oh, just to see him smiling again,” the Crown Princess of Cormyr sobbed, “smiling for me!”
“The king your father lives yet,” Aunadar said smoothly, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Is that not proof enough of his strength?”
Tanalasta burst into tears-the deep, wracking weeping of a woman who makes no effort to cover her face or hold anything back-and went to her knees on the footstool in front of her. Aunadar circled around to embrace her from in front, and she buried her face in his chest and sobbed with such force that his whole body shook. Her fingers were like claws, and Aunadar bent swiftly to murmur in her ear as his encircling arm went around her shoulders. “Lady mine, all is not lost. Whatever befalls this fair realm and your ever valiant father, my hand and heart are yours. I shall serve you with all I have, never failing nor leaving you in need-especially now, when your need is greatest. Now, as the wolves circle Cormyr, waiting and watching for your weakness. Be strong, Tanalasta, queen of my heart! Be strong, queen of the realm!”
His voice rose in passion, and Tanalasta raised bright, desperate eyes to him, tears racing down her cheeks, and reached up to him, murmuring his name through ragged sobs.
Had the king died? A woman sounded in real grief, just ahead. Dauneth almost thrust the hanging aside and strode out to offer what comfort he could, but the word “Queen” once and then again stopped him. The hanging suddenly seemed a friendly but all too flimsy shield. He’d wandered through more rooms than he could keep track of and hidden behind a lot of hangings to reach this place. Surely he must now be in the royal wing.
He looked down to be sure that he didn’t stumble and make noise. The floor was bare and clear. They even dust behind the hangings here! he thought with amazement. Then a sudden, chilly addendum struck him: When was the last time they had dusted? And would they dust again soon?
But the voices came again, and he heard the name “Tanalasta.” The crown princess! Turning to… a suitor, it seemed, for comfort. A gap in the hangings was just ahead, with aching care, Dauneth crept forward, keeping well back against the wall, and peered out.
A woman in a severe gown of the finest make knelt on a footstool with her head against the breast of a man whose arms were around her, his head bent over hers as he murmured comforting words. Dauneth knew him slightly, it was Aunadar, of the Bleth clan. All the talk he’d heard, then, was true. Above her head, Aunadar seemed almost to smile for a moment, and Dauneth looked hard at him.
No trace of the smile-if it had indeed been a smile and not a mere twitch of tired lips-came again, but the eyes of the man whose arms were around the princess were cold and somehow triumphant.
If I were deeply in love and feeling grief for my lover, would I look like that? Dauneth drew back, troubled, but not knowing what to say or do. His discovery, if anyone found him here, could very well mean his death. So he held still, hardly daring to breathe, and listened.
“If you weren’t here, Aunadar, I don’t know what I’d do…”
“Yet I am here, most royal lady, here… and your servant, forever, if you’ll grant it so! Let me be the strong shield at your back, the faithful hound who walks at your side in the shadows… and together we shall win through to bright mornings ahead!”
Dauneth winced. Where did the man find such words? The best-perfumed chapbooks of Sembian love poems?
“Oh, Aunadar, I must go to him! He may be stronger, and if he should wake again, I must be there!”
“Come then, Lady Highness!” Aunadar said grandly, throwing wide a door.
“Oh, Aunadar!” The crown princess said in loving adoration.
“Tana!” he replied, in a voice deep with passion. “My Tana!”
“Yes,” she breathed fervently, and they swept out shoulder to shoulder, fingers laced together.
Dauneth watched them go in thoughtful silence. There was definitely something amiss in this royal house, but he was too ignorant of the everyday feel of things here to put his finger on it. He had to talk to someone. Of course! Rhauligan! The merchant would know what to do now. Dauneth drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped boldly out into the open, as if he had every right to be there and was hurrying on his way, in the conduct of business crucial to the realm.
After all, wasn’t he?
“Glarasteer Rhauligan, sir, dealer in turret tops and spires, stone and wood both-you order ‘em, and we’ll build ‘em, fast and cheap an’ they won’t fall down!” the merchant introduced himself grandly as the newcomer tried to sit down next to him and Dauneth.
The newcomer peered at him suspiciously, snorted, and turned away from the table. “I was seeking someone else,” he said curtly over his shoulder, leaving the young man and the merchant in peace. Rhauligan gave him a cheery wave of farewell that somehow became an impolite gesture and then-as chuckles from other tables made the man whirl around again-a signal for more service.
A waitress with the longest, smoothest legs Dauneth had ever seen on a human drifted over. “My lord?”
“A flask of firedrake,” the merchant told her, “and two tallglasses-one for my friend here.”
The waitress started to turn, and Dauneth gave her a smile that bought him a frank and admiring one to match before she bustled away to see to warm firedrake wine and cold, salt-rimmed glasses.
“Well, lad?” Rhauligan asked in a low voice as the scion of House Marliir shifted to a more comfortable position in his chair.
Dauneth shot a dark look across the table. “No bodies falling out of doors or knife-wielding clusters of masked nobility,” he muttered, “but I did hear Aunadar Bleth comforting the crown princess.”
“And?”
“Something didn’t seem quite right,” Dauneth murmured. “He seemed just a little too happy about the king dying.”
Rhauligan shrugged. “And why not? If he’s Tanalasta’s favorite and she becomes queen, he can run Cormyr without any of the perils of ruling it. He wouldn’t be the first noble to be more in love with a woman’s position than with the lass herself, now, would he?”
“That’s true,” Dauneth agreed reluctantly and sat back with a sigh-in time to look up with a hasty smile as the waitress bent over him and set their drinks on the table, gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze, and was gone again. Despite himself, he turned his head to watch her go.
Rhauligan grinned, shook his head, and poured them both firedrake wine, watching the glasses steam and fog as the warmed liquid met chilled glass. Ah, to be young again…