Elminster Enraged

Mrauksoun glared his fellow burgher down, and seized the verbal podium again. “For us, these murders are it, my lord! We cannot accept things continuing like this! We demand you inform the king-not several score of faceless courtiers who can all safely forget they heard you, and do the same nothing they’ve been doing for years, but King Foril himself-that we are sick unto choking of ever-higher taxes without much to show for it save increasingly heavy-handed border patrols who almost daily stop and search any Immerman or maid departing town for smuggled goods, ever-higher local prices for … for everything, long waits for, well, anything at all-”

“Including Crown permissions!” put in raw-voiced Helmur Faerrad, Immerford’s jeweler and fine pastry maker.

Mrauksoun nodded. “Including Crown permissions-that have to come from Arabel or Suzail. We’re also increasingly dismayed at, shall we say, inadequate local protection provided for us by the Crown. These troubles you’ve just shown us are matters we knew little or nothing about! I’m speaking of the outlaws who’ve afflicted us for years. Why, Broadshield’s Beasts have been taking our sheep and goats for more seasons than I can call to mind, now, and growing ever bolder as the Dragons and all the king’s spies seem unable to even find or identify them, to say nothing of stopping them! Why, they’re even snatching oxen, now! Oxen, out of drovers’ sheds and stables! What we- what all Immerford-wants to know is: what are you going to do about it?”

Before Durncaskyn could make any reply at all, the shortest of the burghers, the gnome wheelwright Askalan Larcloaks, pushed through the taller humans and growled, “Lord Durncaskyn, listen ye well: Our continued loyalty to King Foril Obarskyr turns on this. On just how well you and yer Crown officers handle the investigation of these killings at Irlingstar-including how you and yours treat Immerfolk as they investigate. Not just the cooks and kitchen maids and porters were from here, mind! There are good-and popular-Immerfolk shut up in that castle! The young Lords Cornyn Risingbroke and Yarland Amflame were locked away there for no more than saying a few foolish things about the Crown, and trying to forge trade alliances in Sembia without bothering to tell some nosy palace clerks what they were up to!”

Durncaskyn nodded, his teeth set. Gods, but his wounds were aching hard and deep! “I recall the lords well, goodsirs, and desire their speedy return to full freedom and to Immerford. I only hope the openly rebellious comments that got them incarcerated were errors of youth and not firm beliefs on their part-for like any loyal officer of the Crown, I must uphold the law, and trust in the law to serve all, equally.”

There were some audible snorts from the burghers. They knew as well as he did that those of high birth or station, or having much coin, received better treatment under the law than outlanders, or the poor, or peasants with few friends. Everyone in Immerford had heard of younglings forced to join the Dragons after falling into debt or being caught at some minor crime, and over the last thirty summers or so public regard for the soldiery had slowly shifted from “our trusted protectors” to something closer to “the devils on our doorsteps we know, and must endure.”

Durncaskyn watched their faces, and he knew what they wanted to hear, what he must say.

“Goodsirs, you have my personal promise, solemn and made before the gods as well as all of you, that I will do everything in my power-everything-to see that the murderer or murderers are revealed, that all that drove or enticed them to do as they did is made plain, and that they are fittingly punished. Wizards of war will be called in, I’ll demand whatever aid seems necessary from the palace, and these foul killings won’t be forgotten, treated lightly, or excused because of who the slayer or slayers may be. This I swear.”

They nodded and murmured again, sounding a trifle friendlier. This was language they understood, plain speech that they trusted. Durncaskyn held out his hands to them, empty and palm up, like a beseeching beggar.

“I need you to have patience, to trust in me-and in return, I promise to entrust you, when all the investigating is done and the time is right, with all we learned, to tell you everything. I’ll invite you back here to this office, and tell all.”

“Well, now,” Halston the cooper spoke up, “that’s as fair speech as I’ve heard in many a day. Something I can shake on without hesitation.”

And he reached out a long arm to clasp Durncaskyn’s hand firmly, starting a rush to do so. The king’s lord moved out from behind his desk to reach every burgher, and by slow and continuous steps forward succeeded in starting them back toward the office door.

They drifted out, talking excitedly among themselves about the good lads Risingbroke and Amflame, dastardly Owl Lords, and those right thieving bastards the Beasts. Durncaskyn moved with them, clapping backs and making promises, but keeping his gaze and manner firm until they were well and truly down the stairs.

Turning back to his office again, he permitted himself the luxury of a prolonged and heartfelt rolling of the eyes that would have made all of his sisters giggle, and rather despairingly decided to send the dregs of his local duty team of war wizards to Irlingstar. Better atrocious investigators than no investigators at all.

As he sat back down at his desk and surveyed the map gloomily, his field of view showing him that there was no one lingering who might overhear, he muttered under his breath, “They’re the last three stlarning mages I’d willingly send anywhere-except into exile, to plague someone else. And every last one of the Gods Above help us all, I’m sending them into the thick of a prison where a murderer’s on the loose.” He brightened a trifle. “Perhaps they’ll provide him with some fresh victims.”

Then his gaze strayed to the papers littering the floor, and he fell into gloom again. “Huh. And if they do, it’ll mean more paperwork.”

“Of course, my lord,” Immaero Sraunter purred. “I have just the thing.”

Lord Danthalus Blacksilver reddened a little, concluding that this alchemist would have to be silenced, and soon. Before the man’s loose tongue spread dark rumors across the city of a certain inadequacy-gods, the man’s false delicacy was revolting! — on the part of dashing Lord Blacksilver. He couldn’t have his good name-

The alchemist leaned over the counter, putting his throat within tempting reach of Blacksilver’s little nail- cleaning knife, and murmured conspiratorially, “You must be an utter lion, milord. All the other lords your age who maintain residences in Suzail came to me years ago. Not that I ever name any names, you understand. Or I’d have all the young ladies crowding in here trying to buy extra dosages, and that would be dangerous for lords less able and fit than yourself.”

Blacksilver relaxed, trying not to make his sigh of relief too gustily obvious. Something slender and cool touched his palm. He closed his fingers around it and stared down at it before the alchemist had quite straightened and drifted away. It was a tiny vial of pale blue, translucent liquid.

“Just four drops, into any trifling amount-or large quaff-of milk or water,” Sraunter murmured. “Not wine or stronger drink.”

Blacksilver closed his fingers around the vial, smiled, and plucked forth the purse that held just his “handyspending” gold coins.

A lion among lions, rumor promised.

This little foray had been worth it, after all.

“See?” Arclath said cheerfully. “Both still alive, not so much as a spell-sent ‘Boo!’ to disturb our slumbers …”

Amarune gave him a sour look and rattled the stout chains coming from the manacles that had just been locked around their wrists. “And these are nothing, I suppose?”

“Merely part of the clever deception we Crown agents are working. Four hundred lions a month, remember?”

Rune sighed. “I wish I could be as jaunty about it all as you are. How do you manage it, dear? Is it part of being brought up noble, or being well on the way to becoming an idiot?”

“Both those things,” the heir of House Delcastle agreed merrily, “and being not far off madwits helps, too. That’s probably how Elminster’s done it, all these centuries.”

His Rune winced. “Old many-times-grandsire El … I wonder where he is now?”