"The simplest spells make the best table manners, I find. Don't you?"
Tersept Stornbridge had been fighting to find the right words to say during these last few moments; dismay, rage, and wincing fear racing across his face in clashing and rebounding succession. His champion, however, was a far more direct man.
"Magic!" Pheldane roared, and sprang to his feet, hands streaking to the hilts of several knives as he looked past Blackgult at Lady Talasorn.
The Golden Griffon vaulted the table, hands flashing out to catch Pheldane's wrists. The bull-necked Tersept's Champion was twice as large and half as old-but the graying baron held him easily, even when Pheldane roared in fury and wrenched toward freedom as hard and as suddenly as he could… and those blades stayed unthrown.
The lornsar lifted his hand in a sudden gesture, and the empty balconies filled with bowmen-but the Dwaer sang, and the archers promptly slumped into slumber, arrows and bows clattering down.
Pheldane snarled and brought a knee as broad as a tree trunk brutally up into Blackgult's crotch-only to scream in pain as the barbs on the Griffon's codpiece pierced his knee.
The champion fell back into his chair, sobbing. Blackgult kept firm hold of Pheldane's wrists and stayed on his feet. He let glowered slowly around the table and at each of the uncertainly hovering chamber knaves beyond it, and in a gentle voice that promised doom, if doom was provoked, announced, "I'm still seeking to make friends in Stornbridge, rather than fill graves. I hope you'll all work toward the same ends." He looked longest at Lornsar Ryethrel, before silently sitting down again.
The captain-of-guards was purple and trembling with rage, but Tshamarra's spell kept the sharp, slender needle of steel at Ryethrel's throat, and he said nothing.
Lord Stornbridge found words at last. "Lords and Ladies all," he began, favoring the table with another sickly smile, "I find Overduke Blackgult's suggestion to be a most sensible one, and-despite the unpleasantness that marred the arrival of Aglirta's overdukes in Stornbridge-believe that no tersept nor baron in all the Vale feels a sense of loyalty as sharp and bright as I do. I look upon the reign of King Castlecloaks as a new beginning, a new chance for our fair realm! To have a king who's not asleep for centuries is a great thing in itself!"
He tried a laugh that fell unappreciated into silence, and quickly faded-but almost as swiftly caught up his own enthusiasm and went on. "Yet I'm most heartened by the news you bring, esteemed Overdukes! To have a King who desires to know what we think-even unto blacksmiths and mushroom-pickers! Such wisdom, such a chance for a bright future! I-"
The tersept's endiusiasm faltered for a moment as he caught sight of Craer eyeing his platter dubiously and exchanging a look with Embra, and her swift unleashing of Dwaer-magic on the food, but again Stornbridge caught himself up into a beaming smile, and gabbled, "I find myself quite excited at the prospect of new ideas, a closely guiding hand at work in the realm making the roads safe and settling the many petty disputes that divide one town from the next, and family from family-not that you'll find any of that sort of thing here in Stornbridge, mind you! Ah, no, but I welcome you, brave Overdukes, and hope you'll take a good look around, and talk to many folk, to see the true quality of my stewardship!"
The tersept faltered again, and his undoing was more serious this time. Hawkril and Tshamarra were both visibly struggling to restrain mirth- though Stornbridge had no way of knowing that it was not because of his ridiculous words, but due to the reactions to them of Coinmaster Eirevaur (droll, eye-rolling impassivity) and Seneschal Urbrindur (openmouDied disbelief, broken by silent winces of disgust).
Stornbridge visibly weighed the consequences of reacting with anger to the two miscreant guests, and finally asked, in a strained voice that held mingled coldness, stiffness, and diffidence, "Is there, ah, some problem with my sentiments I should know about? Or some affliction or condition befalling you, perhaps?"
"Horns of the Lady," Undercook Maelree whispered, from her hard-won perch at a high gallery window, "but this is better than a six-bard show!"
Mistress of the Pantry Klaedra chuckled, and then nudged Maelree. "Ssshh. Musn't miss a word!"
They grinned at each other and leaned toward the sill, made bolder by all the tumult below.
"Magic would be the problem," Embra told the tersept briskly. "Spying-spells have just reached into this room!"
"Wha-? But who? Why? Stornbridge seemed genuinely astonished.
"To hear what we decide, obviously," Craer replied, in tones that unmistakably added the words "you idiot" to the end of his sentence.
Tshamarra and Blackgult both shot puzzled looks at Embra. "Able to pierce my shielding and elude your probings for the same reason," she told them tersely. "A reaching not directly to us, but rather to observe through the eyes and ears of someone in this room… the servant standing behind Coinmaster Eirevaur."
Craer promptly vaulted from his seat up onto the table, touching down once amid the platters, and sprang from it at the chamber knave. Servants ran forward to meet and stop him-all but the one he was seeking, who whirled around and fled through an archway. The procurer sprinted in hot pursuit.
"Be careful, Craer!" Tshamarra called, rising.
With a triumphant snarl, Lornsar Ryethrel struck aside the hovering blade at his throat and clawed at the hilt of his sword, eyes fairly flaming as he glared across the table at Blackgult.
The Golden Griffon never moved. The flying needle, however, did-and Lornsar Ryethrel found himself staring at its point, perhaps an inch away from his left eyeball.
"Unless you'd prefer to lose your right eye first?" Tshamarra Talasorn inquired sweetly.
The lornsar let go of his sword and sank back down into his chair in careful silence, the hovering blade moving smoothly with him.
"I see Champion Pheldane has almost recovered-so long as he sits still and puts no weight on his leg," Embra said, every inch the noble hostess. "Perhaps he could reflect on the ease with which I could enspell him to endlessly enjoy the sensations he felt at the moment when he injured his knee… and so remain quiet."
"Graul you, you bitch\" Pheldane snarled. "You and all your bebolten spells!" He reached furiously for his goblet-but the movement was sudden enough to send fresh agonies shooting up his leg. He hunched over, seedling and whimpering, sweat dripping from his contorted face.
"Alternatively," the Lady Silvertree announced, "I could deaden your pain, Champion, though the actual injury would remain. Shall I?"
"Sargh upon you, woman! Sargh right in your grinning face!" Pheldane spat. Without warning or any change of expression Blackgult swung his arm in a great roundhouse blow that smashed into the warrior's face, leaving him reeling. His body promptly twisted and jumped in spellspun pain.
The lornsar and chamber knaves tensed as one, but Seneschal Urbrindur snapped, "Steady! He more than deserved that. Peace be upon this table!"
The Lady of Jewels gave Urbrindur a warm and gracious smile. "My thanks, Seneschal. 'Tis such a pleasure to hear sense spoken among all this fury and bluster. I, too, would fain enjoy a civilized meal among men who reason and debate to wise ends, rather than snarling and showing teeth like dogs warring over a bone."
The Tersept of Stornbridge laughed again. It sounded no more genuine-and was no better received-than his previous efforts at mirth, but he soldiered on into converse once more, determined to salvage something from this disaster of a day. "Why, let us forthwith debate matters of Aglirta, then! As tersept, for example, I feel a constant shortage of coins constraining me from hiring and equipping men enough to patrol the Storn lands as diligently as I would wish. Were the reinstituted crown taxes lower, I could hire more men, and keep the King's law better. Fewer brigands would steal and fewer outlander merchants avoid paying the taxes they should. The royal coffers would be as full, whilst all benefited from greater peace and justice."