“Guards!” roared the seneschal, face creased in pain. “Arrest this man! He—”
“Will go quite quietly, once this is all settled and I can keep my appointment with the surviving Lord Paertrover,” Rhauligan said, stepping swiftly back against a wall as the heavy clump of hastening boots rang down the hallway. “I must be present when Wetterbottom here listens to all the evidence and goes with his spells to interro—er, interview my future client.”
“Oh?” The War Wizard put out an imperious hand to silence Greiryn and push him aside, and his tones were silky as he advanced to face the stout merchant nose to nose, bringing his other hand up with slow menace to show the entire hallway of staring guards and servants the ornate and heavy rings that gleamed and glittered on his fingers. “By what bold right, man, do you make such insistence?”
Glarasteer Rhauligan smiled easily and reached into the open front of his loose shirt.
“Before you do anything rash,” Lord Jalanus added quickly, “I must remind you that there are laws in fair Cormyr, and that I, ‘Wetterbottom’ or not, am sworn to uphold them. I need no court to mete out final—fatal—justice.” One of the rings he wore flashed once, warningly.
“Your slumbers must be troubled,” Rhauligan replied in tones of gentle pity as he slowly drew forth something small and silver on a chain, holding it cupped in his hand for only the wizard and Greiryn to see. It was a rounded, silver harp: the badge of a Harper. “I have also come here from Suzail,” the merchant told them softly, and leaned forward to add in a very loud whisper, “and I was sent by someone very highly placed in court.”
The War Wizard’s eyes flickered and he spun around with an angry flourish. “Admit him to my investigations,” he snapped at the seneschal—then wheeled around again to add curtly to Rhauligan, “Cross not my authority in the smallest way. Your presence I’ll grant, but you are to be silent and refrain from meddling. Understand?”
Rhauligan spread his hands. “Your words are clarity and simplicity itself.”
Lord Jalanus glared at him for a long moment, sensed nothing more was forthcoming, and turned on his heel again without another word. The merchant favored his retreating back with a florid court bow that made one of the servants snigger. Greiryn’s head snapped up to glare, but the culprit, whoever it was, lurked somewhere in the stonefaced ranks of the wizard’s own servants, not the folk of the Hall.
Rhauligan smiled fondly at him. “As Lord Wetterbottom seems to need the entire Ducal Suite, could you open the Royal Rooms for me? Hmmm?”
The seneschal’s hands came up like trembling claws, reaching for Rhauligan’s throat, before more prudent thought stilled them. More anonymous titters were heard, and this time, some of them came from the servants of the Hall.
“The day,” Rhauligan remarked to the world at large as he strode off down the hallway, “does not seem to be proceeding well for seneschals, does it?”
* * * * *
“But he must have done it!” Greiryn protested. “We all saw him holding the bow! T-the string was still quivering!”
“My spells,” Lord Jalanus said icily, “do not lie. Lord Crimmon is innocent.”
“I–I quite understand,” the seneschal said hastily. “I didn’t mean to doubt you! It’s just so… so bewildering! Who could have done it, then?”
“Bolyth,” the War Wizard snapped, turning to the mountainous Purple Dragon who always lurked at his elbow, “have the gates closed immediately. Post guards. I want this estate sealed. Seneschal, reveal unto me, as soon as your wits allow, who—if anyone—has left this house since the deaths.” He rose in a swirl of cloth-of-gold and claret-hued velvet oversleeves, his third change of garments in as many hours.
“I—but of course,” Greiryn agreed, almost babbling. “There can’t be all that many. We’re not like the Dales here, with Elminster flitting in and out like some great nightbat!”
Behind them both, a suit of armor in the corner blurred momentarily. Rhauligan saw it become a white-bearded man in robes, wink at him, and wave cheerily. He winked back, just before the armor became simply armor again.
Oblivious to this visitation, the seneschal was babbling on, clearly shaken at the thought of his young lord master’s innocence. Now that was interesting in itself… “Uh, great Lord Justice,” Greiryn interrupted himself, “where’re you going now?”
“To question the bodies, of course,” the War Wizard snapped, drawing out a wand that was fully three feet long and seemed to be made entirely of polished and fused human fingerbones. “They rarely have much of value to impart, but—‘tis procedure…”
“And we are all slaves to procedure,” Rhauligan told the ceiling gently, completing the court saying. At the doorway, the striding War Wizard stopped, stiffened, then surged into motion again, sweeping out of the room without a word.
* * * * *
“I answer to my Lord Eskult,” the old man said shortly, “not to you.”
Lord Jalanus drew himself up, eyes glittering. His nose quivered with embottled fury and he fairly spat out the words, “Do you know who I am, puling worm?”
The head gardener spat thoughtfully down into the rushes at their feet, shifted his chew to the other cheek, and said contemptuously, “Aye. The sort of miserable excuse for a War Wizard that’s all Cormyr can muster from the younglings, these days. You’d not have been allowed across the threshold of the Royal Court in my day. I guarded those doors for the good of the realm—and turned back from them far, far better men than you.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, leaving the Lord Justice snarling with incoherent rage in his wake.
“Clap that man in chains!” Jalanus Westerbotham howled as soon as he could master words again. Two Purple Dragons started obediently away from their stations along the walls, only to come to uncertain halts as the stout merchant, moving with apparent laziness, somehow got to the doorway and filled it… with one hand on the hilt of a blade that looked well-used and sturdy, and which hadn’t been in evidence before.
“The Lord spoke in empty hyperbole,” Rhauligan told the armsmen, “not meaning you to take his words literally. He knows very well that imprisoning a veteran of the Purple Dragons—and a close friend of the King at that, from the days when Azoun was a boy prince—merely for insisting that he be questioned with due courtesy, would be excessive. When word of such a serious lack of judgment reached the ears of Vangerdahast, even a Scepter of Justice would have to be hasty in his explanations, and no such haste would save him, if the King learned of the matter. After all, what is more valuable to the realm than a loyal, long-serving Purple Dragon? You’d know that better than most, goodmen, eh?”
The two Purple Dragons nodded. One was almost smiling as they turned slowly to look back at their quivering superior.
His hands were white as he gripped the back of the chair he was standing behind and murmured in a voice as hard and cold as a drawn blade, “Goodman Rhauligan is correct. I spoke in hyperbole.”
Wordlessly the guards nodded and returned to their places along the walls. The Lord Justice glared down at several sheets of parchment on the table for a moment, his gaze scorching, then snapped, “Bring in the master cellarer. Alone.” He lifted his head and favored Rhauligan with a look that promised the merchant a slow, lingering death, sometime soon.
The turret vendor gave him a cheery smile. “It takes a strong, exceptional man to endure the strain of keeping up these truth-reading spells. You do us all proud, Lord Jalanus. I can well see why Vangey named you a Scepter of Justice.”
“Oh, be silent,” the War Wizard said in disgust. “Have done with this mockery.”
“No, I mean what I say!” Rhauligan protested. “Have you not learned all you needed to from yon gardener, even though he thinks he told you nothing? Hard work, that is, and ably done. Vangey missed telling you just one thing: never use the commands ‘Clap that man in chains!’ or ‘Flog that wench!’ They don’t work, d’you see? That failure goes a resounding double with the younger generation—you know, the one the gardener thinks you’re part of!”