Narantha had just managed to crack her first nut without reducing it to powder, and was chewing and finding it pleasant enough-her mouth flooding with a sudden rush of hunger-when the forester said, “Stand up, and face yon tree.”
Wearily she rose, still chewing, and he drew her boots off. When she looked down at what he was bringing to her ankles, she started to protest-then threw her hands wide in exasperation, choked off whatever she’d been going to say, and cooperated as he drew the breeches up her legs. They were of stiff, stout hide, smelled a little of mildew, and gaped at the waist, twice the size of her own.
“Hold them up,” Florin murmured, sliding rope through belt-loops. Plucking her nightrobe up out of the way, he ran the hemp rope up and around her neck.
“What’re you-”
“Patience. Take off your robe.”
“ Sirrah, if you think I’m-”
“That’s why you’re facing that way, and I’m around here behind you. Take it off.”
With a weary sigh, her shiverings nigh-constant now, the Lady Crownsilver obeyed. Florin swiftly drew the rope tight into a suspender harness, plucking the robe from her hands and winding it around the rough-haired hempen to pad it and keep it from sawing at her skin. Cutting off the excess rope, he put the tunic over her head and the weathercloak over her shoulders-more mildew-and gathered the cloak at her waist with the belt. Getting her to sit down, he put her boots back on and carefully repacked them, massaging her feet where they’d rubbed raw. Narantha was mortified to discover that they’d acquired a faint but lingering smell.
“There,” Florin said, drawing her upright again. “That ought to-”
Narantha snatched her hand away. “Ought to, nothing. I look like a vagabond who’s stolen a floursack and tied it around herself. I’m not wearing this!”
Florin shrugged and stripped weathercloak and tunic away with a flourish. Untying the rope, he tugged twice-and the breeches fell in a tangle around shapely Crownsilver calves.
Shivering in her cloak of goosebumps, Narantha shrieked and sank down hastily, more out of discomfort than out of modesty.
“Gods naeth, the cold! ” she spat, her lips blue and trembling. The breeze quickened around her, almost mockingly.
Florin’s firm hand took hold of her neck and raised her upright again-for all the world as if he were a farmer, and she his chicken, Narantha thought savagely-to swiftly reclothe her. Mutely furious, she didn’t try to resist.
Smelling of mildew, hide hissing against hide with every step, the reclad fair flower of the Crownsilvers took a few tentative strides, a trifle warmer but no less miserable, sighed, and went looking for the nuts.
Florin was munching a handful of them, and holding a handful more-already shelled-out to her.
As she took them, the forester commanded, “On. Now. Eat as we walk. I don’t want to be anywhere near here when the light begins to fail.” He pointed at some fur caught in the bark of a nearby tree. “Bear,” he said darkly.
Narantha shook her head and looked down at herself. “I look like-like-” Words failed her, and she bit her lip and turned her head away, shaking it.
“A beautiful woman,” Florin replied, “whose beauty shines forth no matter what she’s wearing.”
When she looked at him disbelievingly, he winked.
“Oh, I hate you!” she snarled feelingly, giving him a glare.
Florin shrugged. “ ’Tis one way to get through life. Though too much hating eats away a person, inside. You’d do better to turn all that… verve… to loving, aiding, and helping. Young bride-hunting lordlings’ll be swarming all over you, swift enough, if you do.”
Narantha snorted. “ Those fops! Swaggering emptyheads, the lot of them! I doubt any of them can light a fire, or catch food, or-”
She stopped abruptly and looked away again, her face flaming.
Florin carefully said not a word.
The spell flickered, fading noticeably-but not enough to obscure the scene its caster was intent upon.
A lone lady in a dark gown smilingly traded jests one last time with a overloud and rather tipsy Derovan Skatterhawk, then gracefully descended the wide flight of steps toward the long line of coaches gathered under the mansion lamps.
“Another highly successful feast, I see,” the watcher murmured, toying with a favorite-and loose-unicorn-head ring.
The scrying-spell was wavering on the verge of collapse; only by the bright favor of the gods had it lasted this long, through all the wards and watchspells laid on Skatterhawk House by Laspeera and her enthusiastic underlings: the young, avid dregs of the Wizards of War.
The watching wizard hissed in anger, thinking of them-then shrugged, smiled, and waved the unicorn ring-adorned hand dismissively. “Ah, but set aside such harshness. I must never forget I was one myself, once.”
The lady was handed into a coach. She waved airily to Derovan-who almost fell on his face on the steps, waving back as he leered through mustache and monacle-as her conveyance rumbled away.
“So Horaundoon of the Zhentarim is taking she-shape and courting randy elder nobles of Cormyr now, is he? Why, I wonder?”
’Twould be an elaborate scheme, unless Horaundoon had changed greatly in two summers…
“More importantly,” the watching wizard mused aloud, as the spell collapsed into a cascade of winking sparks, “can he be convincingly blamed for what I’ll do, when I strike at last?”
“Jhess? You’re sure you want to try this?”
Jhessail gave Doust a withering look. “I didn’t drag you all the way out here at this time of night to dare nothing. Douse the lantern.”
Her friend frowned. “Why? ’Tis hooded well enough-”
“I don’t want it interfering with my spell,” she hissed, holding her cloak wide to form a shield over him.
Doust blew the lamp out quickly, without leaking overmuch light into the darkness around them. Backing carefully away from it on his knees to avoid toppling it, he turned, patted Jhessail’s arm, and whispered, “Do it.”
She nodded, handed him her cloak, and on hands and knees crept to the edge of the dell.
As she’d expected, it was flooded with moonlight-and, sure enough, two nightbeaks were down there, tugging and tearing at the huddled bony heap that had been one of Hlorn Estle’s fattest sheep before it had stupidly strayed over the cliff.
Her lip curled back in disgust; the vultures of the Stonelands were cruel, rapacious things that hunted day and night. Doust had brought a cudgel, but she hoped it would not be needed. A nightbeak could easily kill a person, and they shed maggots and lice even more copiously than they voided.
Shuddering at the thought of fighting one fists to talons, Jhessail backed carefully away from the cliff edge-’twas a killing fall for her as surely as for a sheep-and found her feet again. Drawing a deep breath, she started to pick her way along the lip of the dell, Doust trailing her. She had to get to where she could see the nightbeaks, for the spell to work.
If she could make it work.
Here. This spot would do.
She could see them picking at the carcass. Big and dusty black, their heads like fire-scorched helms, their beaks like… like…
She shuddered again, and shut her eyes to banish such thoughts. Breathing deeply, she tried to settle her mind on the image of blue fire roiling vigorously in darkness.
My first big spell. My first battle spell, that deals harm to others.
Blue fire, seething and leaping…
If I can’t cast this, I am no spell-worker.
By Lady Mystra and Lord Azuth, the working was simple enough. So if this Art was beyond her, then all Art was.
She swept that thought away, seeing blue fire in her mind and plunging into it.
When she had its image bright and strong in her mind, she opened her eyes again to give Doust a quick smile and nod. He stepped carefully back, getting well away from her.