A few people muttered, "No."
The cleric raised his voice and clasped his hands together in front of his chest. "Do any of you know how?"
"No!" a few more commoners cried. "Tell us!"
Another warm smile crossed the cleric's face, and the man dabbed sweat and pushed a few strands of dark, matted hair from his brow. "Yes," he said softly, "I'll tell you."
Azoun felt a dull anger welling up inside of him as he watched the cleric play the crowd. He'd seen bullfights in the south, and the toreadors had toyed with the bulls in just such a way, forcing the beasts to dance like trained bears. The king couldn't be too angry, though; he'd used some of the same rhetorical tactics himself when giving his speech to the crowd in the gardens. As the smiling priest paused, waiting for anticipation to build in his audience, the king studied him closely.
The cleric's hair was dark brown, almost black, and combed back from his broad forehead. Deep blue eyes lay under the man's thick eyebrows. His most startling feature was his mouth, which was somehow amazingly expressive. With just the twitch of a lip, the cleric could convey more than most people could with their entire body. Azoun silently noted that the tongue inside that mouth was most likely gold-plated, probably forked, too.
Whatever else there was of the cleric was hidden in a thick brown robe, which was itself very clean, even newly laundered. That fact alone made the cleric stand out in the crowd of grubby peasants that surrounded him. A small silver disk hung at his throat, a symbol of his devotion to the Goddess of Luck. Since the cleric was facing west, whenever he moved, the late afternoon sun glinted off the disk and flashed into someone's eyes.
The priest finished mopping his brow. "These people have won the favor of the Goddess of Luck because they've helped themselves, taken their destinies into their own hands." He signaled to a young boy in the crowd, who moved forward, carrying a small wooden box.
"But what can we do?" asked a pathetic-looking old woman. She held her bony arms outstretched toward the cleric, and her shapeless gray frock shifted on her thin frame.
Without a word, the dark-haired cleric took the box from the boy's hands, held it out to the woman, and opened it. A large golden coin lay in the velvet-lined case. The coin was a gold lion, if Azoun guessed correctly, and like the cleric's holy symbol, it caught the rays of the afternoon sun and flashed them at the old woman. This time it was a gasp that escaped from the crowd.
Servants from Wyvernspur House now lined the street in front of the manor, and a few noblemen and ladies peered at the gathering from open windows. Azoun knew that it was only a matter of time before a contingent of guards arrived to break up the cleric's meeting.
"Lady Tymora visits the Realms from time to time, and when last she was upon this continent, the Goddess of Luck blessed this coin for our temple." The cleric picked up the gold lion and flicked it high into the air with his thumb. The coin arced into the sky, then stopped and spun in the air. Everyone on the street-the crowd, the servants, the nobles, even King Azoun-found himself staring at the gold piece hovering and twirling above them.
"Accept her into your lives, and Tymora will bless you, too," the cleric said to the sea of upturned faces before him. "But only if you prove your worth, only if you tread the way of the faithful."
A few people grunted curses and looked away from the floating coin. "Here comes the plea for copper pieces," a young blond man near Azoun grumbled. A few commoners simply walked away.
That didn't phase the cleric at all. "Yes," he said to the young man near the king. "One way for you to prove that your heart is ready for the goddess is for you to donate money to her church." A few people nodded, their suspicions confirmed. They started to leave.
"What Tymora really wants from you is a commitment to adventure, a promise to trust in luck and forge your own destiny." The priest paused for a moment and looked into the eyes of the dozen or so people left in front of him. As he locked gazes with the king, the cleric added, "Tymora wants you to go on the crusade."
The statement hit Azoun like the flat of a sword wielded by a fire giant; his head swam and his eyes blurred for a moment. When the king looked again, the cleric's gaze had moved on, latching on to other people in the crowd. The dark-haired man was still talking, saying things about the crusade and how Tymora would reward anyone who trusted in her enough to face the barbarians. The king wasn't really listening.
Instead, Azoun was trying to reconcile his initial reaction to the cleric with the message he was preaching. Somehow, coming from an overpolished orator, a common manipulator of words like that worshiper of Tymora, the call to arms sounded crude. It was obviously effective, though, for when Azoun focused again on the priest, he saw that a half-dozen men were gathered around him, evidently still interested in following his advice.
Before the king could speak to the cleric, however, a patrol of six guards came marching up the street from the east. Without hesitation, Azoun turned to the west and walked away. The soldiers ignored the old man in the tattered cloak and moved straight toward the cleric and his audience. From the windows overlooking the street, the noblemen shouted a few cheers and cries of support for the soldiers.
When Azoun was fifty yards or so away, he looked back at the scene, only to see the cleric in a casual, friendly conversation with one of the guards. After a moment, in which time the priest introduced all of his new recruits to the soldiers, the worshiper of Tymora held his right hand open, palm up. The spinning golden lion dropped softly into the cleric's grasp. Azoun shook his head and strode toward the waterfront.
Two hours passed as the king wandered through the streets of Suzail, in the general direction of the Black Rat, a tavern near the docks and marketplace. The late afternoon sun was just reaching the horizon, so many of the businesses were closing for the night. Some shopkeepers busied themselves with securing the awnings and heavy wooden shutters on their open-fronted shops. Other merchants-including all the bakers, butchers, and other food peddlers Azoun saw-were still standing in their storefronts, hawking their goods at the tops of their lungs, trying to sell what perishables they could before they closed for the night.
The king walked to a bakery and leaned against the corner of the building. The white-bearded man who ran the shop scowled at the king, but didn't chase the loiterer away. For the next few minutes, Azoun simply stood on the corner, taking in the relaxing smell of warm bread and watching his subjects as they went about their lives.
"Tell your master that this is the finest bread I have," Azoun heard the baker tell a young serving girl who'd come to pick up part of her master's evening meal. The girl smiled as if she'd made a special deal with the merchant, then ran off. In a few minutes, another girl in the low-cut blouse of a serving wench came to the shop. The baker told her the same thing he'd told the last customer.
Across the narrow, rocky street from the bakery, a weapons crafter kept shop. At the same time the second serving girl was passing by him, the king watched as a small, even scrawny man stormed up to the smith across the way and unwrapped a sword.
"This weapon isn't balanced correctly!" the man bellowed. "I was guarding a caravan in the Stonelands. When we got attacked by goblins, I used the sword and nearly cut off my own leg!"
When the weaponsmith didn't reply, the warrior smashed the heavy pommel of the claymore against the store's weather-beaten counter.
The dark-skinned crafter looked up at last, contempt in his eyes. "I warned you when you bought it, Yugar. That sword's just too damn heavy for you to wield correctly."