The great vaulted hall was filling up rapidly, which meant that some of the early arrivals, who wanted to avoid rivals or cut dead those with whom they were feuding, would soon start to leave. This didn't have the feel of a relaxed revel, where debauchery might soon break out. The grand folk of Waterdeep were uneasy because their not-yet-seen host was Elaith Craulnober, the notorious Serpent.
Right now might be her best chance to slip away. She was to leave her report in the study that overlooked the grand hall from the seaward side-and this had to be the grand hall.
She caught up to the servant, left her emptied tallglass on his platter and deftly procured a tallglass of something she could at least see through, and tilted her head back to idly survey the hall as she sipped.
Quite used to such self-absorbed behavior, the servant slipped around her and moved on, with neither of them having so much as glanced at each other's faces, which was a good thing, because the man's dwindling form looked familiar. She'd probably worked alongside him, cleaning up after some other revel elsewhere.
Lark raised her glance and her glass again-and spotted what she was looking for. The hall sported a promenade or continuous balcony, overlooking the crowded floor from all sides, and a second level above that of separately jutting balconies. One of them, on the seaward side, was larger than most and was glassed in. All was in darkness on both of those upper levels; the Serpent obviously wanted his guests to crowd and mingle beneath the glowflames and the chandeliers, to make it clear to all just how many of Waterdeep's best and brightest his invitation could bring.
"Eltorchul! Eltorchul! Hoy, Bunny-Ears! Over here!"
Lark winced at the deafening bellow and swiftly turned her back. If people looked this way, she would just as soon have them look at her bared back than her face. There were none in this city who'd recognize it, as she wasn't in the habit of baring her spine in noble mansions or anywhere else.
"Why, I was talking to Lady Hiilgauntlet just the other day, ahaha, and she told me-"
Lark began drifting toward the seaward wall. Now if I was an ascending staircase, where would I be? Close enough to a garderobe to serve as an excuse, it was to be hoped…
"What a sly little snake you are, Bedeira. How many hang-tongued men have you demolished as thoroughly as you did poor Laeburl, I wonder?"
"Forty-six, my lord," came the gloating reply. "Care to be my forty-seventh?"
Lark's progress thankfully took her out of hearing whatever reply Bedeira was offered-and even more thankfully, showed her broad stone steps, flanked by suits of armor far too ancient to have living men inside them, within the third archway in the wall before her. The light was dimmer here, and inevitably the gossip was more whispered and vicious-and some hands were wandering.
Lark stepped around a couple so lost in rapture that the feminine half of it was using her chin to hold up her own gathered gown. Beyond them was the arch that opened onto the stairway.
Glass in hand and affecting the frown of a well-bred lady who was beginning to feel some urgency in a search for the nearest garderobe, she stepped through the arch, glanced up the stair, and discovered something else.
There was not a guard to be seen, and over a landing far above her hung the paired blue and red lanterns that proclaimed: Garderobe Here.
Gasping a relief she didn't quite feel, Lark started up the stairs.
"You look as bored as I feel," Taeros murmured to Beldar, deftly avoiding a drunken Brokengulf maiden aunt. The aging beldame seemed bent on changing that status before the evening was out; she reeled past, twittering and clutching at all and sundry.
Beldar inspected the dregs in his latest goblet and told them, "I am hideously bored. One thinks of the notorious Serpent with the spice of danger, not-so-veiled elven insults, a whiff of things illicit-and a lot more elverquisst than I've seen yet." He waved a hand to indicate the room all around and added, "But this… this is our parents, chattering about their petty politics and intrigues. As harbor-filling usual."
To underscore his judgment, Beldar nodded his head toward old Laranthavurr Irlingstar just as the craggy-faced old bore's monocle made another of its inevitable plunges from its cheek-top perch into the grotesquely large snifter in the eldest Irlingstar uncle's hand. Droplets of luminous green liquid arced up in all directions in the wake of its loud "plop," and Aeramacrista Gauntyl, whom he'd been lecturing about proper precedence when dealing with "those new-coin think-far-too-well-of-them-selves visitors from Amn," drew hastily back from the shower with a little crow of alarm that she clumsily transformed into a titter.
Her retreat caused her to jostle Mornarra Cassalantar. Exaggerated exception was taken. Cutting words erupted.
Taeros rolled his eyes.
Beldar was rather gloomily regarding a glistening emerald droplet that had just landed on the back of his hand. "Calishite aumbruril. How three decades back!"
Taeros chuckled rueful agreement. "Shall we flit elsewhere, then?"
"Decidedly. There's a dance on at the Slow Cheese. Find Malark, will you?"
"Consider him found. Behold our royal blade-besieged, as usual."
Taeros pointed with his fresh goblet at a solid ring of noble matrons, all waving ring-laden hands expressively and spouting nonsense as fast as they could draw breath. The two Gemcloaks could just see Malark's rather weary smile over the fantastic coiffures of the shortest noblewomen. It seemed silver galleons were fashionable at the moment, for no less than three such vessels were sailing through cranial waves of artfully dyed, pinned, and stiffened hair.
As they watched, Malark's smile slid just a trifle more. Taeros made a sympathetic sound, tossed his goblet in the general direction of the nearest servant, and strode into the press of loud laughter, overwhelming perfumes, and glittering, gleaming "my taste is even worse and more expensive than thine" garments. Trills of alarm erupted and flower-bedecked fans swatted at him, but he forged on.
"Come, Lord Kothont," Taeros announced firmly, arriving at his destination, "'tis past time we attended to your prize pegasus. You know the poor thing goes mad if you don't dose it by four bells past dusk!"
"Goes mad?" one matron crowed delightedly. "How so, young sir?"
"Dose it?" another shrilled, her plump face gleaming with the avid fascination of one whose own ills were legion, endlessly fascinating, and entirely imaginary. "What sort of medicine?"
Malark was already grinning helplessly at the fancy Taeros was so glibly spinning and continued to do so as the youngest Lord Hawkwinter laid hands on his shoulder and started steering him out of his twittering prison.
"A secret distillation," Taeros confided grimly.
"Secrets, my lord? Come now! You dare keep no secrets from us, your elders and betters!"
"Very well," Taeros said sweetly, turning to survey the bright-eyed host of over painted faces as Beldar, not quite wearing a smirk, took Malark's other arm. "'Tis a distillation of… the blood of noblewomen."
They departed amid a noisy chaos of scandalized exclamations, delighted laughter, and uncertain mirth. Taeros suspected Malark would have slightly more breathing room at the next revel he attended.
By the lopsided grin on his face, Malark evidently thought so too. "Couldn't you have said the blood of old noblewomen?"
By the giggles issuing from within, the garderobe was being used for other than its usual form of relief. Good, that gave her a handy excuse. Lark strolled idly on into the darkness to look over the promenade rail and noticed the three Gemcloaks making their way to the doors. Good and better.