Arrogant? Aye, and their masters were worse. In their foray up and down the realm, presenting their young ladies to the eligible young noblemen of Cormyr, they’d passed the gates of Taverton Hall thrice. At least. More times, perhaps. Oldest and smallest of the great estates in Northbank this might be, but these three oh-so-noble lords must have been saving it for last, like a favored food at a feast. Taverton Hall was the seat of Lord Eskult Paertrover, Baron of Starwater and Horse Marshal to the Crown of Cormyr, bluest of the old blood houses to currently hold important court rank. Any lass who wed his son and heir, young Lord Crimmon, would gain her father an important ear at court.
Oh, yes, a very important ear. Doddering and lost in nostalgic glories Lord Eskult might well be, but his hand wrote the orders that conferred court ranks—and monies and powers with them—upon nobles, and assigned other nobles standing garrisons of Purple Dragons. Soldiers one had to feed and that were always, so the suspicions went, in your home to keep an eye on you for the Crown. So one lot of nobles gained wealth and power and another saw their purses go flat under the weight of a lot of hungry, swaggering soldiers. Yes, there were many nobles who made a point of being “old friends” of Lord Eskult. Many a case of fine wine came in through the gates at feast days. Immult licked his lips at the memory of a particularly fiery sherry from a Rowanmantle winehall.
Another guard glared at him suspiciously, but the seneschal swept past him, pretending not to notice. Bah! Let these dogs snarl. They’d all be gone from here soon enough.
“Yet,” Lord Crimmon said earnestly, knowing he had their breathless attention, “the ghost always reappears.” He gave them a suitably ghostly half-smile, and broke his pose to gesture grandly at a rather crumbling expanse of old, close-fitted stones. The rings on his fingers sparkled like miniature stars as the warm light of morning caught them and set them afire.
“Here, ‘tis seen as a shape on the wall, no matter how often Paertrovers tear down these stones and rebuild with new ones.” He waved his glittering hand again, in a wide circle above his head, three pairs of beautiful eyes following his every move. “Everywhere else on the estate, folk see a floating, grinning face in a long-plumed helm.” He gave them the smile again, knowing just how dashingly handsome—and rich—he looked. “It quite put my father off courting in these gardens.”
“And has it had the same effect on you, Lord Crimmon?” Lady Shamril Farrowbrace’s voice was a low, throaty purr. Her large, dark eyes held his with a look that was more promise than challenge, as one of her slim hands played in apparent idleness with the glistening string of silver-set pearls that adorned her open bodice.
“Lady,” the young lord told her in mock reproof, “that would be telling rather more than it is good for the nobly bred to know.”
One elegant eyebrow arched on the brow of another of the three Flowers. “Because it ruins the game, Lord?” the Lady Lathdue Huntingdown asked. “Do you seek to slight our sport, or just that of our over-reaching sires?”
Lady Chalass Battlebar stiffened, eyes flashing for a moment as she gathered herself to take proper offense. Her head snapped around to see just where her father was and found that he and the other elder lords had strolled out of sight, their bodyguards drifting off in their wake. The remaining guards had carefully situated themselves just out of earshot of normal converse, but quite within hailing distance. She relaxed, turned back to face Lord Crimmon—he was an engaging rogue, not the thickskull or dribblechin one might expect to find as heir of an old-blood house—and smiled.
“For my part,” she told them all lightly, “I care not if my lord father dies of old age snooping behind every stone in Cormyr for a ‘suitable’ mate for me. I have no interest in courtship at all this fine summer. Dalliance, now …” She lowered her lashes delicately as she put the tip of one slender, long-nailed finger to her lips and licked it with slow languor.
“Oh, Challa, a little subtlety, please,” the Lady Shamril sighed. “There’ll be plenty of time for thrusting ourselves at our gracious host here—and his father or yours, for that matter—when the dancing begins. I was enjoying the tale. ‘Tis a change from gallant young lords showing us their prized stallions and making clumsy, leering jokes about riding, and wanting to see our saddles, and all the rest of it.”
She waved a disgusted hand and all three Flowers tittered together at shared memories that were obviously strong enough to dash away the irritation that had flashed across the face of Lady Chalass under Shamril’s chiding.
“Yes,” Lady Lathdue Huntingdown agreed, leaning forward in real eagerness rather than with the slower flourish she’d performed earlier to best display her jeweled pectoral. “Our fathers may be after an ear at court and the warehouses of Paertrover gold, but we—I think I can safely speak for all of us in this—are not hunting husbands. Yet.”
She caught the eyes of both other ladies, saw their agreement, and confirmed it with a nod that set her splendid fall of hair rippling along her shoulders—then abruptly dropped courtly manners to address Lord Crimmon plainly. “Crimmon, tell us more of your ‘grinning ghost.’ I love a good scare.”
The young lord shrugged, suddenly weary of showing off the family haunting like some sort of trophy of the Hall. “There’s little more to tell. I don’t make up stories about him just to impress.”
“We’ve come a long way, Lord,” the Lady Shamril purred. “Impress us just a little… please?”
“Will we see the Grinning Ghost?” Lady Lathdue asked directly, her eyes very large and dark. She leaned forward even farther, so like a hound eager for the hunt that Lord Crimmon had to smile.
Into the spirit of it once more—if that was not too dangerous an expression, given the subject—he leaned forward to almost touch noses with her, the sparkle back in his eyes, and half whispered, “So if you’re anywhere about our grounds, and feel a gaze upon you, turn around. As like as not, you’ll be staring into the twinkling eyes of the ghost, who’s been floating along right behind you!”
Two of the Flowers gave little embarrassed cries of fright. The third—Lathdue—uttered not a sound, but Crimmon saw a shiver travel the length of her shapely shoulders and arms. Her dark eyes never left his as he lowered his voice again and went on.
“He never says a word and does nothing but follow folk who scream and flee.” The young noble made a grand gesture, as if thrusting desperately with a sword. “Some have dared to attack him or charge straight through him. All such say they felt a terrible chill… and got a true fright when the smile ran off the ghost’s face like a cloak falling from someone’s shoulders.
Lord Crimmon left time for another chorus of delicious moans of fear, and added more soberly, “When he’s watching you but not grinning, they say ‘tis a sign you stand in mortal danger.”
The three ladies laughed lightly in dismissal of such a ridiculous notion—how could a spirit know the fates and troubles of the living?—but their host did not join in their mirth, and it died away weakly as they looked into his face.
The gray Paertrover eyes that had seemed so dancing but a moment before were dark and level as they stared past the Flowers at something that was making the color slowly
drain out of Lord Crimmon’s face. The three ladies spun around … and joined in the deepening silence.
Floating behind them, perhaps three paces away, was a disembodied head, its face pinched and white and the plumes of the long helm that surrounded it playing about slightly in the breeze. Its eyes were fixed on Lord Crimmon’s and its face was expressionless. And yet, for all that lack of expression, somehow sad and grim. All at once it began to fade away, becoming a faint part of the sun-dappled light, then a gentle radiance among shadows… and then nothing at all.