“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” he continued. “It’s no secret I opposed the alliance. But I hoped I was wrong about the Jadarens, and all this time it seemed I was.”
Taking the edge of the paper carefully between the tip of his forefinger and thumb, he lifted it slightly from the surface of the table.
“Now I fear for my niece, more than I ever did. I wish I could have obtained proof like this before my poor brother’s passing.”
In the months after the alliance was negotiated, Nicol Beguine had sickened, although on the voyage to Jadaren Hold for Kestrel’s wedding, his appearance and strength had improved. Some months afterward, however, he fell into a decline, and the physicians suspected one of the mysterious wasting diseases that sometimes struck down seemingly healthy people with no outside indication of what could be ailing them. He grew weaker and weaker, and Sanwar took branches of the business under his management so his brother could rest. Finally, the winter after Ciari’s wedding, Nicol died in his bed, with Vorsha holding his hand.
Business continued with barely a ripple-Sanwar already controlled so much of House Beguine’s dealings that transitioning power from his brother to himself was an easy task. After a decent interlude, he married Nicol’s widow, a decision that engendered some enjoyable gossip amid the more prominent families of Nonthal but was in the main considered good business sense.
The Beguine girls kept any opinion they held of their uncle’s marriage to their mother, good or bad, to themselves.
Sanwar still held the edge of the paper gingerly. “What do you know about the history of House Jadaren?”
Kaarl’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “I know something of the routes they’ve forged over the years. And the feud, of course. But the history of the merchant families isn’t chronicled the way that of the noble families is, of course-although it’s my opinion they influence the course of history just as much, if not more.”
Sanwar smiled faintly. “That a man of war is wiser than a chronicler doesn’t surprise me.”
He frowned down at the paper. It was of a curiously thick texture, and the writing on it was strange to Kaarl-all slanted, angular lines, rather like dwarf runes.
“The feud,” he continued. “This vendetta we pretend is finished. It’s old news to the merchants we deal with, both those that aligned themselves one way or another and those that managed to stay neutral. But does anyone know why it started?”
Kaarl shrugged. “Ivor Beguine partnered with a man named Jadaren, long before the Spellplague. I’d heard they had a shipping business, and one cheated the other.”
Sanwar nodded. “My father told me Gareth Jadaren cheated Ivor Beguine out of a contract to deliver cedar to Waterdeep. My grandfather claimed a Jadaren poisoned a Beguine when they were rivals in love. I never cared why. I had plenty of reason to hate Bron Jadaren and his sniveling nephew on my own, the smug, self-satisfied-”
He bit his lip and stopped, looking up at Kaarl with glittering eyes.
“Here.” He lifted the paper fractionally. “A scribe in Old Nonthal took this down from Ivor Beguine’s son, as the son lay on his deathbed. It tells why his father hated Gareth Jadaren and why he warned his generations against his. There’s a dark secret at the heart of House Jadaren, within that riddled rock they call their home. It explains the protective magic of the Hold. It explains why the alliance will prove disastrous to my niece.”
He let the paper settle back on the table. “They are patient. They’re willing to wait years for their plans to bear fruit, to see a crop from the seeds they’ve planted deep within the bosom of our family. I know of at least one spy that we all trusted with our lives.”
Sanwar smiled as his quick eye caught Kaarl’s shoulder muscles tense and his right hand flex automatically. “Yes, I know you’ve always suspected that Boro Nimor had something to do with the raid on the party to Shadrun, so many years ago. You can speak honestly to me.”
Kaarl took a moment to marshal his thoughts. “He was so insistent I keep to the back,” he said. “And he let the others slop around, out of formation, that distance from the sanctuary. It wasn’t like him. It wasn’t like a man of his experience. It’s always bothered me. It’s not my place to say so. But it did.”
“You’re a Beguine as much as I am,” Sanwar told him. “Wrong side of the blanket or no. You have every right to state your opinion, to me or anyone else, Cousin.”
The captain of the guard bent his head. “Thank you.”
Sanwar studied Kaarl dispassionately, aware it wouldn’t be as easy to trick him as he had tricked Nimor.
“They will attack you as you approach the sanctuary,” he had told him. “Keep the experienced men in the back, with the girls and the wagon. You’ll know them by the green uniforms-Jadaren uniforms.”
Nimor had frowned at that. “I don’t understand.”
Sanwar had sighed internally and put an expression of patient concern on his face. “I know the Jadarens intend something sinister in this so-called alliance. How they’ve convinced my brother baffles me. If he didn’t live so transparent a life, I’d suspect blackmail. I do believe they’ve wrought an undue magical influence upon him, and I have tried to nose it out, to no avail.”
“My lady Kestrel … she has no such concerns?”
Sanwar had bit back an impulse to tell the captain of the guard to concern himself with martial matters and leave the thinking to him. “She obeys her father’s wishes. And the spell might extend to her as well. I would do so, if I had cast such a thing.
“I need to put doubt in my brother’s mind, just to crack the surface of whatever it is they’re doing to him. Just so I can talk some sense into him, and have a chance of his listening.” Sanwar studied Nimor’s face, seeing obstinacy in his lowered brows. Carefully, he composed the tonalities of his voice, pitching his words in such a way as to make everything he said seem eminently reasonable.
“Do you think the Jadarens would be any kinder to my niece than they were to your sister?”
Noting the involuntary widening of the eyes and the clenched muscle at the side of the jaw that betrayed a sudden flare of rage, he adjusted his voice accordingly, making it more insinuating. “Forgive me, my friend. I don’t wish to prod such a painful wound. But you can’t deny that they entangled that poor woman into debt, encouraging bad decision after bad decision, until everything had been stripped from her and she was destroyed.”
In fact, Boro Nimor’s sister had been an extraordinarily unlucky and poor businesswoman, in debt to many before ill health and despair had cut her life short. At the end, the agents of House Jadaren she had cheated had been dunning her, as were half a dozen other merchants.
But Nimor loved his sister and couldn’t bear to believe her lack of business acumen was her own failing. He needed a scapegoat to blame, and Sanwar had long since convinced him that Angharah Nimor was the innocent victim of Jadaren manipulation.
Sanwar chose his words carefully, cajoling the captain into believing that his plan was the only sensible solution.
“If Nicol thinks there’s a chance Jadaren guards would attack Kestrel, he’ll delay the wedding. The more time I have, the better chance I have of convincing him to call the whole thing off.”
Nimor shifted his weight, considering. “I would not like any of my guard to be hurt in this charade. Many of them are young and untried.”
“My men have orders to retreat when you fight back. Make it last a little, though. Enough that your guards see the uniforms.”
“Are you sure of them?”
“I would not risk the safety of my niece. Or that of your guards, either. They’re actors, playing at bandits, no more. I doubt they could hurt any of you if they tried. I would ask that on your end you avoid killing any of them.”
The burly guard had grinned. “I can’t guarantee they’ll escape unscathed.”
Sanwar spread his hands. “What can one do? They’re well paid and take on the risks of their profession. I would appreciate it if you could manage to avoid killing any of them, though. Good actors are hard to find.”