As Rhauligan leaned out to peer, she slipped inside the window, favored him with the briefest of glares, and closed it behind her. Through its dung-streaked, amber-tinted glass, the Harper saw her turn its catch, latching it firmly.
So. He could either climb the outside wall-and though he was the stronger of the two of them, he was also much the heavier-to break that window and force his way in or stand here on a nice level balcony and do the same to a window or door.
Out of habit Rhauligan ducked low and turned back to peer over the balcony rail. Its gargoyles were still gargoyles, and there was no sign of guards or anyone else in the mist-beaded shade-gloom of the lush garden below.
He spun again to the door, still in his crouch. Nothing moved in the room beyond the door-which was dark and seemed to hold a lot of large, draped things . . . furniture shrouded in dust-sheets. Rhauligan's eyes narrowed. Lady Ambrur was certainly still in Marsember-or had been, yester-morning-so this couldn't be the usual nobles' practice of shutting up one house and journeying to another . . . not that current local Harper wisdom knew of Lady Joysil Ambrur having any other abode. Of course, she could be invited to some Sembian hunting lodge or Cormyrean upcountry castle at any time, but. . .
Perhaps she merely found the house too large for her daily purposes and used this part for storing the furniture she liked the least. Yes, that'd probably be it.
The door had the simplest of latches but also featured an ornate inner bar and two floorspike bolts, so Rhauligan undid a catch on his boot-heel and slid the heel off, exposing it as the hilt of a razor-sharp scriber.
A moment later, he was neatly removing the first shaped pane of glass, cut along its putty-lines, and reaching in to undo a floorspike. He had to work swiftly or Narnra would have time to descend the three levels or so from the window she'd entered to this floor and get below and past him . . . leaving him the entire gods-kissed, servant-crowded mansion to search for her in. Yes, the score was still rising . . .
Out of habit he kept casting glances back over his shoulder to make sure no one was on the wall or flying past-Why not? Some of these nobles sponsored or gave house room to apprentice mages, gaining the protection of thiefly fear of such guardians-to see him and raise the alarm … or just practice their skills at putting handy crossbow quarrels through intruding Harpers.
No such hazards presented themselves before Rhauligan got the doors open. Once the floorspikes were drawn up, the doors could be made to part enough to thrust his prybar between them, lifting the latch and thrusting the inside bar up and out of its sockets.
He had the door open swiftly enough to dart one hand out to deflect the falling bar from a crash down onto the floor-nice polished emeraldstone tiles, alternating in diamond-shapes with white marble-into a thudding impact with the nearest draped wardrobe or whatever it was and a fairly quiet tumble down the cloth to the floor.
The Harper restored the bar to its rightful place, sheathed his prybar, and advanced cautiously into the dark, quiet room. A mouse scurried from under one shrouded thing to under another, but otherwise . . . nothing moved but the dust. He was leaving a faint trail through it, he knew, and soon found the piled-up extra end of a too-large dust-sheet to wipe his boots on.
The room was large, and opened onto the next chamber of the mansion through a great tapestry-filled arch rather than doors. Rhauligan listened at the wall of cloth, hearing nothing, went to one end of it-rather than disturb it trying to find its center parting-and slipped his head around it.
He found himself looking at a large, dust-dancing stairwell, with a railed landing joining it to his room and others out of sight beyond the wall that cradled the stairs.
"Nothing," a voice called suddenly. "Something disturbed the doves, right enough-a gorcraw, mayhap-but none of 'em had any messages. I checked every blessed one."
Rhauligan hastily drew back a breath or two before a bored servant-woman whose bosom resembled a large sack of potatoes trudged down the nearest stair and went along the landing.
"Well, that's all right, then," another, sharper voice said from somewhere under Rhauligan's boots, presumably the next landing down. "So long as we miss nothing and catch no Lady-fury . . ."
"Huh," the large woman agreed, as she started down the next flight of steps and passed out of Rhauligan's view. "Can't be thieves, unless they can fl-" She stopped, stock-still and said in a different voice, "Hold, now! That was it-the window was shut! Shut and latched! One of them birds 'prolly came flying to get in and smacked right into the glass! Send Norn down to check for one lying in the gardens, and get the lantern-oh, and fire-pokers for the both of us! I'm not going back up there alone!"
"Aye," Sharp Voice agreed, her voice fading as she descended unseen stairs, "but what sort of thief shuts a window behind his-self?"
"An idiot thief, that's what sort!" Lumpy Bosom replied sourly, almost driving Rhauligan to chuckle.
You have that right, goodwoman, you do indeed . . . and I'm assigned to be her keeper, more's the pity. . . .
No, that was unfair. The Waterdhavian's only mistakes had been to blunder after a wizard to get here-and to run from half the gathered War Wizards and Harpers in the realm.
Well, she'd ended up with only one following her, hadn't she? So perhaps her lone hunter was the idiot. . . .
Rhauligan put away that wry thought and turned back to the task at hand. So the window had been left open to let doves in and out of their cote. Well, that explained the handy open window and the bird-dung . . . and if Lumpy there had gone up the stairs to answer whatever alarm Narnra had triggered in any sort of haste, the thief from Waterdeep had to still be somewhere above him.
Of course, he now had to keep watch over the stairs so she couldn't slip down past him and at the same time manage not to be seen by two wary she-servants when they came back up here-and walked right past his staring face-with pokers in their hands.
Perhaps the rooms on the far side of the stair . . .
Rhauligan was out along the landing and around the stair-head like a hurrying ghost, and into . . . more dark, shrouded rooms given over to dust. Smaller than the one he'd been in, one giving into another through archways, again. Must be hard to heat in winter, with no doors to close, and that was probably why this tower of the mansion had been the one chosen to languish as storage. Cold storage, ha ha.
Well, he'd best turn and find the best vantage p-hold! What was . . . another stair!
Rhauligan was across the room like a storm wind, already fearing he was too late. This stair was narrower and steeper-a servants' route, no doubt-and deserted. He peered at it then went chin-down to the dusty floor and squinted up at the steps. Aye, there! And there! She'd been down it, right enough, and not long ago.
* * * * *
Mask aid me, how big was this house? A grand pile indeed, from outside, yes-but to leave so much of it to the dark and dust! Was its owner a half-witted hermit, clinging to a few rooms and shuffling about mumbling about past glories? Or shut up in a sick-bed, with dwindling coins keeping fewer and fewer servants?
Or were there newer, grander wings and towers and entire rambling mansions beyond this, that she hadn't seen yet?
Somehow Narnra suspected the latter.
"Just go on being the Silken Shadow," she breathed to herself, hoping the Harper hound on her trail had given up or been caught . . . and knowing, somehow, that she was just dream-wishing.
Yet she felt-good. When her prowls were going well, she seemed almost to float along in the silence and the gloom, silence wrapped around her like a cloak.
She felt like that now.
Narnra gave the darkness a fierce grin and went on, wondering what lay ahead. Perhaps the stables, with a hay loft to hide in. And coaches. All nobles had coaches, and coaches betimes went out through city gates. . . .