'There's over five hundred nobles in gold here," Pinch pronounced. "If you take it there could be five hundred more tomorrow, if…"
"If?"
"If you give me Therm's body and let us go." The upright man couldn't suppress the smile he felt inside, a cold,evil smile like a cat's grin. He had Wilmarq; he knew it. The offer was more than the bastard could refuse.
The officer glanced at his men outside. "I'll need a body to replace him," he said slowly.
"Yes, you will," was Pinch's confident reply.
"It'll have to look like him."
"It will."
Corrick's old eyes widened as he listened to the exchange, barely audible over the noise of the crowd. "Pinch, you don't mean-"
"His body," the thief said to the soldier.
"Wait," Corrick said, "I-"
With a sudden single thrust of his sword, Commander Wilmarq cut the rest of Corrick's quavering words short. "The thief's dead," he shouted to his men outside. "Cut him down!"
Without waiting, Pinch went into action, poking his head out the front of the wagon. "Maeve, your spells. Sprite, get Therm in here!"
Brown Maeve, suddenly dry-eyed and calm, heaved herself into the cart and knelt by Corrick's body. The wizardress mumbled a few words of a spell as she passed her hands over the corpse. The old thief's wrinkled flesh softened and flowed until it appeared that Therm lay on the boards. Sprite was already heaving the unconscious but very much alive Therin from the scaffold into the back. Pinch dragged the boy in. Side by side, the pair looked like twins in death.
The crowd, still hungry for thrills, rushed the scaffold in a mad attempt to seize the corpse. The Hellriders sprang to their duty to hold the mob in check. They struggled against the bloodthirsty tide, unwilling to use their weapons against honest citizens.
"Get going," Pinch shouted as he half-shoved Wilmarq out of the cart. With a heave the rogue tossed Corrick's ensor-celled body out of the wagon. "Let the crowd have him! No questions that way!" Pinch advised as he clambered into the driver's seat.
Pinch wasted no time in savagely whipping the team forward, plunging it into the crowd. Chaos erupted as those in the wagon's path scrambled to get out of the way while others fought to seize the body left behind. In his last look back, before his cart disappeared down Elturel's backstreets, Pinch guessed the crowd was winning.
A tenday later, in a wineshop in Scornubel, four travelers sat at a table littered with bottles. Two of them, a little half-ling and a faded woman with brown hair, had long since passed out. The other two men were still boozing. It was late, but the owner didn't mind; the two were free with their money. Every once in a while the older man, a nondescript fellow who dressed too well, would flex one leg as though it were stiff. The other, a big farmhand, had the equally odd habit of rubbing a scarf around his neck.
'Told you I had a plan," slurred the older as he sloppily poured another round.
"Fine plan-hang him and buy him back. You should try it sometime," groused the farmhand. "By Cyric's ass, these scars itch! How'd you know I weren't going to die up there?"
"Didn't," the older mumbled wearily.
"You mean I could have died?"
"Didn't matter. You were only part of the plan."
"Only part-Corrick! You wanted Corrick."
"You're alive____________________"
"And the one who turned me's dead. You knew he'd done it all along."
"I suspected. The Hellriders' showing up at Maeve's crib -it was too easy. Somebody'd turned on me." The dark-haired one dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.
The first streaks of dawn shone through the cracks in the tavern's shutters, glinting off the bottles. "Then this whole plan, it wasn't about rescuing me at all, was it?"
The older man raised his glass to play the wine in the morning light. "I like to think of it as a lesson in loyalty."
A Matter of Thorns
It was a meaningless little castle, perched on a high hill overlooking an insignificant spur of the Immerflow River, protecting nothing. The military minds of neighboring Cormyr didn't consider the keep – known as Castle Stone – worth the troops it would take to occupy, so they left it alone and labeled it strategically useless. The sixty-odd souls who lived in the village that squatted around the castle walls thought otherwise. They were fiercely proud that Castle Stone had never been defeated in battle. Small wonder: the granite towers and oaken gate had never been attacked.
In truth, Castle Stone's unusual garden was the fortification's only real claim to fame. Two hundred years past, wild rose hips planted in a small bower at the center of the main courtyard had grown into stunningly beautiful roses, red as new-spilled blood and thorned like morning stars. More luck than skill had allowed them to prosper and bloom over the decades, but their remarkably deep color caused the castle lord to claim them as his own. From that day to the present, the lord's banners all bore the blood-red rose as their emblem.
Those same banners had been flying at half-mast for two days now, ever since death had come for the old lord of the keep. The new Lord Stone, filled with the foolishness of youth, thought himself a builder of empires. He reorganized the sixty-man army, set his accounts to right, and replaced all his father's advisors with younger, more farseeing men.
This wasn't to say that the new Lord Stone's thoughts were focused only on matters far afield. Musing, the young nobleman wondered if there shouldn't be a new symbol for his domain, a unicorn or great dragon, something to gain him respect-or even fewer snide remarks-from his enemies. At the very least, it was time to get rid of the gardener. The old sot had been at his post for five decades, at least.
Pleased with his decision, Lord Stone sent his young chamberlain with the appropriate orders. The head of the household hurried to obey his lord's wishes, his scepter of office thudding against the stone floor in staccato rhythm. For his part, Lord Stone turned his mind toward another matter vital to the keep's continued prosperity-the menu for dinner.
He had barely decided upon a choice of soups before the seneschal's scepter came thudding quickly back.
"There is a slight problem, milord," murmured the head of the household. "Goodman Grim… refuses to retire."
"What!" Lord Stone bellowed. "When I give an order, I expect it to be carried out!"
"I understand, milord. I agree."
"Well, why wasn't it?"
The seneschal toyed nervously with his heavy chain of office. "I tried to tell Grim your command honored him, that you were rewarding him with retirement. He didn't see it that way." Swallowing hard, he added, "He's still out there, digging at the roses. I could hardly have him hauled away from his post. Grim has-begging your pardon and with all due respect-been in your father's and grandfather's service. He's rather popular with the rest of the staff, and such a scene might cause unrest in the household."
"Unrest indeed!" The young nobleman jumped from his throne and stomped out of the chamber. "We'll see about this!"
All Grim had ever wanted to do was tend Castle Stone's roses. Forsaking all other possible careers-including a promising apprenticeship with a traveling mage-the frail, bent gardener had grown up, grown wise, and grown very old working with his lord's beloved plants. He fondly remembered his father, who had been the gardener before him, bringing him to the castle to view the prized plants. Their huge buds and gentle fragrance had entranced him even at that tender age; the young Grim had cultivated a garden of his own, nursed with loving care and the little magic he'd picked up almost instinctively, but none of his hundreds of blooms could ever equal one of the castle's roses. He'd sworn then and there that growing the special flowers would be his life's work.