So he was a merchant with secrets. That shouldn’t be so rare in Waymoot as to upset local war wizards enough to call in superiors. He’d already planned to hide his orb inside the hargaunt, and hide the hargaunt as part of himself, whenever he set boot outside this oh-so-cozy chamber.
Horaundoon unwrapped his smallest scrying orb, set it on the table with the inn towel beneath it, laid his fingertips on it, and murmured the words that brought it to glowing, floating life.
It was time to go hunting foolish new adventurers…
Once dismounted, reins wrapped around her arm, Islif turned to Florin and embraced him. “Thank you,” she said huskily. “I meant to do this earlier, but those war wizards were determined we’d not get any chance to talk together before bedding down, without them eagerly taking in every word. I’m surprised they didn’t bed down with each of us; they did lock us in, you know.”
Florin nodded. “I discovered that.”
Islif kissed him. “Thank you. I don’t know how you did it-you must have had Tymora’s own shining luck, not to get killed! — but you got us our charter, and handed us all our dream!”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t become a nightmare.” Florin sighed. “This may be a huge mistake. I made a terrible blunder a few days back, and if I go on making them, I may well get us all killed.”
“Excuse me,” the Lady Narantha said firmly, putting a hand on Florin’s arm and giving Islif a beseeching look-who nodded and let go, allowing the noblewoman to drag Florin a few strides away.
Keeping her voice low, Narantha bent her head close to his and murmured, “You guided me in the forest; there, I was little better than a child. Please heed me when I say this now: forests may be unknown realms to me, but leading people, winning arguments, and manipulating folk high and low are where I can guide you, a little.”
“Lady,” Florin agreed, “I will. For as they say of the Blue Dragons, I’m all at sea in this. I can bark commands and look imperious-my father did that very successfully, and I can ape him easily enough-but when I ride with my friends, and their lives are at hazard…”
Semoor sidled a few steps closer to them, cocking his head with an exaggerated flourish to eavesdrop.
Narantha gave him a dirty sidelong look and moved around Florin to face him squarely-and be able to look past his arm and watch Semoor.
Putting her arms around Florin’s neck, she drew his head down and murmured, as they stood nose to nose, “I must give you stern warning. Never appear indecisive or less than confident. Even if you quail inside, or feel bewildered, be firm, give orders, and make others think you are in command of what befalls-and you will be. You must do this, Florin!”
Sober blue-gray eyes met hers, and relief was growing in them. Florin let out his breath, smiled, and told her, “Thanks, La-”
“Nantha,” she said firmly, kissed the tip of his nose, and stepped back out of his arms, catching hold of his hand to lead them back to the road.
Semoor was holding their horses for them, and at their approach he observed loudly, “So you are a couple. Sidling off by yourselves for kiss-and-cuddle moments, embracing whenever you get the chance-”
“Master Wolftooth,” Narantha said crisply, “I’ll tolerate much from the friends of the man who saved my life. Yet a woman’s reputation is her all-for the nobly born, at least-and if you cast many more unfounded aspersions my way, be aware that you’ll soon be doing so without teeth! Or what are vulgarly referred to as your ‘family jewels,’ or both teeth and jewels, as my outrage moves me. Hear me, upstanding servant of Lathander, and guide thyself accordingly.”
“Oh, well said,” Islif applauded. “Semoor, spare us any attempt at a clever rejoinder. Tell the lady: ‘Yes, Lady Narantha. Thank you, Lady Narantha. Sorry, Lady Narantha, and it won’t happen again, Lady Nar-’ ”
“Hey, now!” Semoor protested. “I can manage all of those courtesies but the last. Lathander looks not favorably on falsehoods.”
Narantha wrinkled her forehead in the deepest of puzzled frowns. “And so you chose to serve him why, exactly-you being what you are?”
The Waymoot roadguard gave them a smile and a wave; evidently their fame had preceded them. The Swords took rooms at The Old Man after Narantha told them it was the quietest inn in town, ate a good meal, then strolled down the street.
Doust was bound for evening prayers at the local temple of Tymora, but the others sought the doors beneath the hanging signboard of The Moon and Stars.
Flanking the entrance, four watchful rangers with swords at their sides stood waiting, leaning against the jambs and side-panels with crossed arms and carefully expressionless faces.
“Down blades,” one of them ordered.
“Goodman,” the Lady Narantha replied politely, “you may guard my dagger.” As she calmly hiked the skirts of her glittering flame-hued evening gown to unsheath it, raising all the eyebrows the four doorwardens possessed, she added, “These my companions have a charter, newly given them by the king himself, that permits-”
“Oh, you’re the bright heroes from Espar! Be welcome!” The man glanced back over his shoulder, to where a sudden swell of noise had marked the appearance of a jowly man with a mustache through an inner door. The new arrival looked at the Swords, then nodded to the senior doorwarden-just as Narantha laid her dagger across the man’s palm and said to the jowly man, “Fair even, War Wizard!”
The mage blinked at her, stepped back to survey her from head to foot, then said hastily, “And good even to you, Lady-?”
“Crownsilver,” she answered, sweeping past him. “War wizard training is slipping, I fear; Vangey should have thoroughly acquainted you with all of us, from our faces to our indiscretions.”
Still blinking, the surprised war wizard gave ground as the Swords followed her, emerging into a huge, many-pillared taproom whose dark wooden tables were crowded with cheerfully noisy drinkers. It was a splendid, warmly lit room, awash in the smells of fried cheeses and more exotic platters, and it stretched from the gleaming bar before them to the booths along the far wall of the room, a long spearcast away.
Out of long habit Narantha paused just inside the door way to make a grand entrance-and Islif, who’d taken shrewd measure of Florin’s new friend, threw out her arm like a door-bar to keep the rest of the Swords from walking right into Narantha’s shapely back.
The noisy room hushed for a moment as the noblewoman clad in eye-catching flame was noticed, then talk returned all the louder. Through it, Narantha called to the tavernmaster, “A booth or table for six, if you have one!”
“Six?” Semoor asked, from behind her.
“Doust will no doubt be thirsty when he gets up off his knees,” she replied, without turning. “In the meantime, it might keep the war wizard-who’ll see it as his duty to eavesdrop on us-from hovering; he can just sit down with us, and join in.”
At the rear of the Swords, Florin and Jhessail looked with some amusement at the jowly mage beside them, who harrumphed and blushed.
The duty tavernmaster looked Narantha up and down just as the war wizard had done, then hastened out from behind the bar to lead them down the room, beckoning them with a flourish.
The Lady Narantha glanced neither to right nor left as they threaded through the tables, but the Swords behind her were acutely aware of interested stares from dwarves, tattooed dusky-skinned traders from the South, dozens of merchants, and almost as many fighting men-probably guards, though they wore little or no armor, and not one of them bore scabbarded blades or any other sort of weapon. The Swords’ sheathed weapons drew some curious looks.
The tavernmaster bowed and swept out his hand at a table almost at the end of the room. “Will this do, fairest Lady?”