She bent her stare upon them until the last knight had sat himself down, then gave Elminster a wry smile.
“Thank ye, lass,” he said quietly, bowing low to her. She held out her hand, and he bent and kissed it, never flinching from the cold that made the nearby watching highknights wince.
Then he rose, waved a hand at her in salute, and turned to trudge on into the undercellars.
“You’re welcome,” Alusair told his back. “Many have defended Cormyr. You, Elminster-more than me; more than my father; more than Vangey, damn him; more than anyone-are the one who’s defended Cormyr against itself.”
CHAPTER SIX
I know not why the Open Feast’s held on the score-and-sixth night of Mirtul, lass,” Lord Parespur Bloodbright said testily, jerking at her arm to drag her attention back to him.
Amarune blinked at him, turning only reluctantly away from staring up at the magnificent gilded statues guarding the double doors of Dragontriumph Hall. They were, if she hadn’t lost count of grand staircases, three floors above the street and just about at the south wall of the royal palace.
“It just is,” snarled the young nobleman who’d hired her for the night, “and always has been, since the king was young. So stop asking tomfool questions, and start acting smitten with me. All I want to hear out of you is moans of desire for my manly charms and murmured thanks when I offer you something! You’re being very well paid for this, remember?”
Amarune nodded hastily, gave him a smile, and moaned as requested, lips parted to let every nearby eye in the palace see her tongue. Dropping her eyelids half over her eyes, she purred like a cat, as she often did when leaning forward from the edge of the Dragonriders’ Club stage-and Bloodbright brightened visibly.
“That’s the way of it!” he said delightedly. “Oh, they’ll be so jealous! I can’t wait to see their faces-Delcastle’s, most of all!”
“By my sword!” a splendidly dressed young noble exclaimed delightedly from behind them, striding around to stand in front of Bloodbright and adjusting his monocle as a deft excuse to thrust his nose practically into Amarune’s bosom. “Who is this enchanting creature, Bloodbright? Where’ve you been hiding her?”
“Heh heh,” her patron for the evening replied jovially, swelling up almost visibly as he started to preen. “Now, Reinlake, I can’t be giving away all my secrets. Ladies of taste know what they like, of course, and can’t help but cast their eyes at the most rampant stags, eh, what?”
The two young lords roared out almost identical dirty laughs and dug each other in the ribs like two drunken drovers, as Amarune smiled prettily up into Bloodbright’s face and kept her own countenance serene-and her eyes steady, not rolling-through extreme effort.
She was well aware of many other eyes on her, drinking in her dark beauty. She’d been receiving such stares since back at the palace gates. Not that she wasn’t used to avid looks, and more, throughout most evenings. Amarune knew she had a magnificent figure-more the result of a wasp-thin waist and a sleekly muscled body than the overly lush curves possessed by some of her fellow dancers at the Dragonriders’-and a strikingly beautiful face, thanks to eyes that were larger and darker than most. Add to that her long, swirling fall of dark hair and the graceful, flowing movements she’d worked so hard to make her unwavering habit, and she drew gazes wherever she went.
Even if Bloodbright proved to be a clumsy lover when he inevitably bedded her at the end of this long night, there were far worse ways to earn coin than to spend an evening as the hired arm-adornment of a young noble attending a palace feast. There’d be good food and better wine in her near future, as well as much to see and hear. Not just the splendors of the palace and its new-to-her gossip, but possible clients among the ambitious nobility who’d be attending. A chance to put names to faces, at least, and judge which lords she should “work” for, and which she’d probably prefer to avoid, when they sent their messengers. Only a bold few, such as Bloodbright, made it as far as the Dragonriders’ while out on their evening revelries; most preferred haughtier and more exclusive establishments, and only sent envoys into more common places to do their looking for them.
Still guffawing, Lord Reinlake swept past them into the hall, and Amarune found herself being whirled along in his wake, on Bloodbright’s arm through a chicane of hanging lamps and tapestries into the bright and noisy gaiety of Dragontriumph Hall during an evening court feast.
The Open Feast, she’d been curtly told before Bloodbright had run out of patience, was called that because-out of a tradition so venerable its origins had been forgotten-no royalty attended, so the feasters could speak more freely.
They were certainly doing that. And enthusiastically shouting, singing, and making rude noises and impersonations, too. Not that Bloodbright was going to stand for her stopping long enough to really see or hear any of it yet; he was thirsty and was heading with swift urgency around the long table that dominated the room to a dimly lit archway where a cellarer was shooing servers with platters of tallglasses out into the great chamber like bees leaving a hive. Thirsty guests in the royal palace were not to be kept waiting.
The din in the hall was deafening. A chapbook scribbler like Flarm “Mouth of Suzail” would have described the scene around Amarune right now something like: “Over splendid food in luxurious surroundings, bright young ambitious things mingle with jaded nobles and urbane courtiers, fluted wineglasses in hand, discussing the morrow of Cormyr-and jockeying for power in that future.” Amarune knew that, because those were the very words Flarm had used to describe last year’s Open Feast. Tress had kept that yellowing chapbook and had produced it triumphantly for Amarune’s perusal upon hearing of this night’s work.
What-if Flarm could be trusted-was evidently the usual long feasting table ran like a lance down the length of Dragontriumph Hall, lined with chairs for a formal dinner. That night, however, it was set for “catch table,” where diners helped themselves to platters and moved freely about. She’d talked to some of the girls who’d been to other feasts, and knew that later, once many guests had become weary of drinking and nibbling-or drowsy thanks to overindulgence-the few who preferred to sit and eat more than circulate and talk would be joined by many more in the chairs, but at the moment almost everyone was standing and talking.
And talking.
By the gods, she’d heard shrieking children’s fights that were quieter!
Bloodbright stopped with a smile in front of an elder servant he obviously knew, who was pouring wine from a decanter into tallglasses deftly plucked from a server’s platter and offering them wordlessly to feaster after feaster, accepting dregs and empties in return with practiced and politely silent elegance.
“Fair evening, my lord!” the cellarer smiled and extended that smile with a nod in Amarune’s direction, without making it a leer. “Lady!”
She smiled back at him then looked swiftly and-she hoped-longingly up at her patron, who flushed with pleasure as he took a tallglass and replied. “ ’Tis indeed, Jamaldro! Charsalace, is it? Ah, good, good! A glass for my lady!”
One was put into Amarune’s fingers with a deft flourish, and Bloodbright smilingly propelled her away along the dim rear expanse of the hall, where knots of nobles were standing, drinks in hand, talking excitedly.
He strolled a winding way through them, obviously showing her off. Amarune kept her eyes firmly on him, an expression of ardent worship on her face, but listened hard to the snatches of converse they were passing.
“… oh, it’s haunted, all right! An entire wing of the palace! That’s why they built this new one we’re standing in, see?”