Yet there is no more necessary plague. Adventurers make even kings think twice about cruelly oppressing all who pass within reach, teach prudence to high priests and even rogue wizards, and are almost the only curb upon the numbers of dragons and other large and monstrous beasts.
On the whole, I think the balance comes out about even. What makes us keep adventuring charters instead of burning them along with their bearers is the entertainment adventurers afford the populace. In hamlets and at waymoots, after one’s grumbled about the weather, taxes, the latest rumors of war and orc raids, and the all-too-paltry gossip about the indiscretions of royalty and nobility, there’s little else to talk about but the foolish escapades of adventurers.
Thundaerlel Maurlatrimm
Four Decades of Innkeeping published in the Year of the Highmantle
R oyal Scribe Blaunel, did you eat something bad?”
“No, Royal Scribe Lathlan,” came the somewhat weary reply through the garderobe door. “I ate something at highsunfeast that disagreed with my patrician bowels. However, I’m hrasted sure they’re empty now!”
“Good to hear. I’m not doing this new charter alone.”
The door opened and Blaunel emerged, waving his hands to shake away the last few drops of rosewater. “What is it? Those dolts in Arabel haven’t finally managed to agree on a name for their rushcaning guild, have they? Or run out of dissident rushcaners to knife in alleys?”
“No such luck, Tymora forfend. ’Tis our bold Azoun-saving adventurers, claiming their royal reward whilst their deed is still on everyone’s tongues!”
“Huh,” Blaunel grunted, sounding profoundly unimpressed as he slid back into his seat and reached for his favorite quill. “What are this lot calling themselves? No more ‘Flaming Banners of the Valiant Valorous,’ I trust?”
“Ha! These are upcountry hay-noses. They’ve not the learning to spell ‘Valorous,’ nor ‘Valiant.’ No, they just wanted ‘Swords of Espar.’ ”
The senior scribe sighed. “Know they nothing of the lore of the realm? Some of the Swords are still alive-and dwelling right here in Suzail!”
“Aye, I saw Mlaareth a ride ago, striding along the Promenade like he owned it with a lass on each arm. And to answer you straight: no, I guess not. You’d think, growing up in Espar, they’d at least have heard of the Swords of Espar-minstrels only tell the tale of the Dragondown Slaying once a month or so!”
Undermaster of the Rolls and Scribe Royal Blaunel belched delicately, raising the back of his hand to his mouth more out of habit than politeness, and shrugged. “Mayhap they have. If they’re as simple as all that, they may not know they can’t name themselves after an adventuring band that still holds a charter, retired or not.”
He fell silent to finish shaping an elaborate swash, did so with practised skill, and grunted, “So what’d they pick, when told they couldn’t be Swords of Espar?”
Lathlan smiled. “Swords of Eveningstar.”
Blaunel snorted. “Strained their wits hard, didn’t they? Surprised they didn’t call themselves the Trollblood Blades!” Shaking his head, he began to shape the first fanciful “S” of “Swords.” Then another thought struck him.
“Still, I suppose if they had wits, they’d not be adventurers. They’d be merry-swindling merchants instead.”
“And dwelling in Sembia, awaiting daggers in their backs,” Lathlan replied promptly.
The two scribes exchanged grins, dipped their quill pens in unison, and bent their noses to the charter in unspoken accord.
The sooner done, the sooner off to the Swan for a tankard. Or three.
When it grew late and the back room of the Watchful Eye crowded with tired, well-slaked farmhands all too easily irritated into swinging their fists, the oldest topers of Espar were wont to drift outside for a last pipe and a word or two in the moonlight, ere ambling off home.
Under the moonlight, the usual six or seven old hardjaws were leaning against Dammurth Talgont’s back stable wall, across the street from the inn, trading comfortable jests and the latest gossip.
That clack for once concerned not just highborn doings in Suzail, the latest flareups of those flamebrains in Arabel, unfolding schemes of the murderous and serpent-tongued smugglers of Marsember, and most recent flamboyantly coin-wasting idiocies of the legions of gold-for-brains gaudy prancing dolts who dwelt in Sembia. This night, talk touched on Espar itself!
On every tongue hereabouts, in the wake of the swift-racing news of the great Battle of Hunter’s Hollow-wherein a lone local lad had singlehandedly hewn down a sinister and mysterious invading army lying in wait to ambush the king-was the name of Florin Falconhand.
Old Durrust the miller took his long clay pipe out of his mouth long enough to say, “Oh, he’s a pretty one. The ladies all agree on that.”
“More’n’that,” Barth the Barrelhead put in, “plenty of lads look to him, too. He’d make a good Purple Dragon commander, he would.” The local cooper was one of the few men adorning the wall who’d not been a Purple Dragon-and so of course considered himself an expert on all matters, large and small, of warfare and the Cormyrean military.
Thorl Battlestorm spat thoughtfully into a nearby clump of weeds. “Ah, but would he? What if he’s a clevershanks, all selfish-or a real bad ’un? We don’t know that, now, do we? I’d be fair surprised if he doesn’t get up to some of the same foolishness all young lads do. Some come out of it, but some go on to greater and greater folly, and come to bad ends… usually long after the gods should’ve served them with what they deserved.”
“That’s just it,” Durrust agreed. “He’s young, yet.”
“Aye,” agreed the horse breeder Nornuth, “and as young bucks go, those looks and knowing the forest and all, bid fair to make him better at charming the lasses than most.”
Durrust tapped out his pipe. “Sound not so rueful, Norn. I hear you did all right in your day, in such- hem — valorous pursuits.”
There were chuckles, but Battlestorm overrode them with a stern, “Let’s not ride down that road, lads; my ears have heard more than enough chortling memories of lasses long gone and how soft and splendid they were. ’Tis this Florin lad, late of Hawkstone’s forges-where he acquitted himself well, I’m told-who’s on the brink of knighthoods and royal favor and riding off to Suzail in mirrorbright armor and all. We’ve chewed over our elder days oft enough, and can again when other fancies falter. What I want to know is: Is he a shining hero sent to Cormyr by the gods, or a dullard who just happened to do the right thing when excitement landed atop him, or something in between? Is he really a brilliant bladesman, and a swift-as-a-hawk fearless strategist, and truly noble of heart and character? Or do we just want him to be?”
“Those are thoughts every loving mother wrestles with.” A calm, quiet woman’s voice came out of the night, from the shadows nigh Tarreth Oldhall’s back shed. “I’m no different than most, Thorl.”
The men fell silent, abashed, as Florin’s mother stepped out into the moonlight. Imsra Skydusk’s spells and the regard they all held for Hethcanter Falconhand, whose name still held weight in Purple Dragon barracks ten years after he’d last worn the king’s armor, had kept her from the bother of any man of Espar trying to romance her, or even leer and wink at her over tankards. Yet her every stride was liquid grace, and she was the darksome half-elf beauty many local men thought about, when lying in their beds seeking sleep that would not come. Cloaked in moonlight, she was throat-tighteningly beautiful.
“I…” Thorl Battlestorm tended to dominate any gathering, and men of Espar looked to him. He felt he should say something now, and rather uneasily continued, “owe you an apology, ma’am. We-ah-meant no offense, but merely-”
“And you’ve given none, Thorl. None of you have. Every mother loves her son and wants to see him rise high and far in life, to be happy and looked to by all. Yet I very much fear my Florin will put a foot wrong-and the more exalted the company, the harder will be his fall. More than that, I can’t and won’t chase after him and spy on him every day, and so see not all that he does. Though I’ve seen nothing to make me worry, I’m afraid he may have put a foot or two wrong already.”