Caladanter found his voice at last. "Y-yes!" he almost shouted, and then clapped a hand over his mouth in fresh fear, looking beseechingly at his bodyguard for acceptance.
Boarblade gave it to him, smiling the warm smile of an admiring friend. Young Lord Caladanter actually sighed in relief-as the lying Zhentarim thrust the collar that would enthrall him around the foolish lordling's neck and tightened it, hard and fast.
"So instead of marching yourself sttaight to a needless execution that will end the Caladanter line in disgrace, why not win back power for nobles and the Dragon Throne for the Obarskyrs and us all by working with me in my little scheme? A plot that has King Azoun's personal approval? I intend to eliminate a poisonous few Wizards of War, discredit the lot of them, and weaken their stranglehold on the throat of fair Cormyr. When King Azoun can truly rule from the Dragon Throne once more, he will need loyal officers and courtiers-and he knows he can find none better than the nobles of Cormyr. Not those with the longest, proudest lineages, nor yet those with the most coin to flash. Rather, he will look to those who aided him in the dangerous times when the shadow of Vangerdahast loomed over the land. To them he will grant power and high station and confirm the high regard all Cormyreans will hold for such brave men. You, Lord Rhallogant Caladanter, can be such a one."
His master blinked at him, downed most of his oversized goblet in one great gulp that left him reeling and blinking away tears, and gasped, "M-me?"
Boarblade nodded. "I have seen it in you, these seasons we've spent together. I know you can be among the foremost lords of Cormyr." He leaned closer to Caladanter and made his voice fierce with belief. "I know you deserve it!"
"I–Ido?"
"You do," Boarblade decreed firmly, "and the time has come to prove it. Not to me, Lord; I already know your true worth. To the king, whose hopes rest in you, and who so long ago sent me here in hopes you would take me into your service, and so set you on the path that has led you here, this day."
Was it Oghma he should pray to for forgiveness, for wallowing so grandly in every last cliche'? Or Deneir? Both, Boarblade decided, and for that matter Milil and a few more gods; they must all be snorting at this tripe he was talking.
But hold, the young lordling was finding his feet at last. Rather unsteadily. "C-command me," he gasped, eyes shining. "How can I best serve Cormyr?".
"Spare Feathergate and keep me close at hand henceforth. Take to bed and get some sleep; if you're too excited for slumber to come easily, have a drink or two. You must be alert and rested three mornings hence, when King Azoun's next orders will come to me."
"Done," Caladanter agreed, waving his goblet with a wild flourish that almost overbalanced him into a stumbling run into the nearest study wall.
Recovering, he gave Boarblade a wide smile, strode to the door that led into his bedchamber, and more or less fell through the opening, sketching a fanciful salute.
Idiot noble.
Boarblade watched the door slam and then listened to a faint series of crashes that marked the drunken lordling's progress toward his distant and grandiose four-poster.
"That went rather well," he told the snarling panther and settled himself into his master's favorite chair.
He cast another of the mind-ptying spells the Lord Manshoon had taught him, which he used so often to spy on Caladanter's thoughts-shallow, boastful, and self-serving, most of them-to make sure his inspired young master wasn't hurrying to arrange the slaying of his hired assassin or to contact a Wizard of War.
Then he relaxed, allowing himself a sigh of his own. Young Rhallogant wasn't-instead, as expected, he was hurrying to drink himself into a stupor.
"Stout fellow," Boarblade murmured aloud, glancing idly around the study as he wondered what mischief he could most profitably pursue once his master was blind drunk and snoring. The rushing thoughts he was spying on grew both wilder and more confused as all that wine took hold.
Boarblade's gaze settled on a magnificent gilded map of Cormyr that he'd admired before. Grant young Rhallogant one thing: he had an impeccable taste in maps.
Boarblade clasped his hands together and stroked his chin with them. If he could just keep this now-leashed lordling from doing something so stone cold stupid as to draw Vangerdahast's attention to him, he could do a lot of damage to the Wizards of War.
And hasten the day when he could cast the spell that would bring him, in the depths of his own mind, face-to-face with the coldly approving smile of Lord Manshoon as he reported, "I have done it, Lord. The wizards of Cormyr are subverted, and their realm awaits your covert rule."
Not that he-unlike some nobles he could name, this one and others far older, who should know much, much better-was impatient fool enough to expect that day to come soon. No. Patience and slow, deft deeds and more patience. Step by careful step, until the destination becomes inevitable. Those who boldly leap tend to topple, hard and fast and fatally.
Lost in such thoughts, with the blurred glories of Azoun ushering dozens of bared, beautiful, and adoringly eager noblewomen of the realm into the waiting and deserving arms of Lord Rhallogant Caladanter, Telgarth Boarblade of the Zhentarim failed to notice something silent and stealthy rippling its way across the room behind him.
Something mottled and shifting in its shape. It looked like an old scrap of tanned boarhide that was somehow alive and able to grow its own tentacle-like arms that flowed continually into new shapes, yet tugged the shapeless thing along with menacing purposefulness.
Ghoruld Applethorn, had he still been alive, would have known it for what it was and would have been eager to learn just why the har-gaunt, after keeping company with him in such evident satisfaction, had so abruptly left him somewhere in the Royal Palace of Suzail.
Yet a plot had failed, and Applethorn was dead, so there was no one to identify the hargaunt as it moved purposefully across Caladanter's study, unnoticed by Telgarth Boarblade. Gloating does take some concentration.
Silently the strange shapeshifting thing flowed up an ornately carved chairback, reared up to deftly shape a long, narrow tentacle-and thrust it, ever so delicately, into one of Boarblade's ears.
The Zhent stiffened and shivered, just once. Then, as the tentacle reached his brain, Boarblade's face went from astonished horror at being invaded to a calmer expression of interest, an expression that drifted into sharper, stronger interest-and then into a pleased exclamation: "Ho! Well, now!"
Then, slowly, Telgarth Boarblade smiled an evil smile.
Dark and scowling Brorn had been one of Lord Yellander's two best house swords, and tall, scarred Steldurth had been the other. A dozen armsmen each they'd commanded in Yellander colors.
"My bullyblades," Lord Yellander had called them all proudly, and he entrusted them with all his "dark work." Slayings aplenty they had done for him and had fetched drugs and poisons by the caravan-load out of Sembia to enrich him. Thefts, too, and spyings. There were the Dragon Throne's laws, and there were the handful of those laws that the Lord Yellander cared to respect.
The gap between had been the business of his bullyblades.
Until their lord's disappearance. Purple Dragons had come to the Yellander lands then, six or seven for every bullyblade, and Wizards of War had ridden with them. They had taken firm possession of Yellander's properties and wealth, notably barn after barn full of the unlawful drugs thaelur, laskran, blackmask, and behelshrabba-to say nothing of several coffers of poisons. Those barns, packed to the rafters, had been guarded by Yellander's bullyblades.