Elminster Enraged

deftness of court champions.

Farland came to an abrupt halt, watching all the displays of swordsmanship, and wondered just how long he could last against-what, fourteen? — expert swordsmen.

Then he saw Lord Delcastle glide over to stand at his shoulder, his sword ready-and the dancer, or thief, or whatever she was; the Whitewave woman, appear beside his other shoulder, a fearless little smile on her face and several daggers between her fingers, ready for throwing …

“Well, well,” said one of the nobles, giving them a choice sneer. “Three of you, against all of us? What’ll that be-a few more moments of sport? Show us how well you can beg and scream! Leave the woman alive for, heh, the usual purposes …”

He strolled forward, slicing the air wildly with his sword like a butcher seeking to sharpen two blades against each other, the grinning line of armed nobles moving with him-when a horrible scream rang out from right behind them.

The nobles whirled around, snarling curses, afraid that guards had arrived in a stealthy attack to sword them down from behind-

But they saw only one fellow escaped inmate down on the flagstones, all alone with no one around him. They all knew him-couldn’t help but know him. It was Lord Quensyn Rhangobrar, one of the most arrogant and bullying prisoners ever to swagger around Castle Irlingstar. He lay on the floor clutching vainly at his own throat, blood spurting from between his fingers. He kicked feebly at the floor, writhing in his own blood, choking and gurgling.

And there was no one at all around him, no one nearby.

Rhangobrar gave a last, agonized gurgle-it rattled in his throat horribly-and slumped dead, twisted on his back with one knee up. His hands fell away, and they could all see the raw, gaping ruin under his jaw.

His throat was largely gone, torn or cut out.

Lord Quensyn Rhangobrar had just been murdered. By a person, beast, or force unknown, more or less in front of their eyes.

Thessarelle’s Platter was one of the most upscale dining establishments in Suzail, but had long since been deemed “so four summers ago” by the nobility. Its very unfashionability had long since left it quiet and desperate for trade. Therefore, it was eminently suitable for those seeking a superior experience without having to drop overmuch coin. Wherefore these nights, Thessarelle’s-to call it “the Platter” was considered distinctly uncouth-was a favorite haunt of high-ranking courtiers, outlanders visiting Suzail, and Cormyrean wealthy folk who lacked titles and harbored no ambitions to soar socially. On this particular early evening, two patrons of the establishment were dining alone at adjacent tables.

One always ate alone, by choice-the quiet, bespectacled Rensharra Ironstave, Lady Clerk of the Rolls. The head of tax appraisals for all of Cormyr, she had few friends, and had to be seen to be free of such encumbrances as Cormyrean dining partners who might be thought by watching eyes to be attempting to bribe her, work deals with her, or to get her drunk and then seek to poison her. She did not mind being given a table in a bad location, close to the kitchens and facing all of the traffic of arriving and departing diners.

The other bad table was customarily given, by Thessarelle’s gliding, murmuring, impeccably mannered staff, to the most boorish outlander or party of outlanders to darken their doors, in an attempt to keep them as distant as possible from other diners, regular clientele in particular.

On that night, a certain Mirt the Moneylender easily won the title of “Most Boorish Outlander” without even trying for it. So it was that he came to be seated, with three bottles emptied before him after only one platter of fried hocks-and-tongues, and well before the arrival of his ordered “best side of boar,” at the table beside the one Goodwoman Ironstave was smoothly conducted to.

“Well, now,” he said jovially, giving her a wide and welcoming smile. “Well met, beauteous lady! Which goddess are you, I wonder, stealing down to enchant mere mortals this fair even?”

Rensharra had been brought up to be polite, even if most of her daily work of dealing with deceitful nobles and wealthy merchants forced her to all too often be sharply and bluntly candid, so she turned away to hide the heartfelt roll of her eyes from him. He was, after all, an outlander-and by his accent, from the Sword Coast or somewhere equally westward and barbaric-and probably knew no better.

“You flatter me, saer,” she announced in a flat, no-nonsense voice.

“How can I do anything else, when yer beauty is like a sharp sword, piercing my heart-or somewhere rather lower?” His wink was large, exaggerated, and accompanied by genuine amusement. Gods, there was a proverbial fallen-star twinkle in his eye! Rensharra snorted. He was so … charmingly crude.

“Your vision, saer,” she told him tartly, “must be faulty. It leads your judgment astray.”

“Oh, but that’s wonderful,” he gasped, in the manner of a swooning princess in a badly acted play. “To be led astray by such a splendid woman, so swiftly! Tymora smiles upon me, surely-as, I see, do you. Could it be that yer own innate love for waywardness … dare I say yer hunger for straying … matches my own? Ah, but I’m too bold by half! Let me claw desperately at what is left of my manners, and offer you my name-Mirt, Lord of Waterdeep-and my purse, to furnish you with whatever you desire to drink and to eat, here in this superior dining establishment, this night! Pray accept my offer, by way of making amends for my coarse, forward, low outland ways! We are direct in Waterdeep, we charge at what we desire, we seek to board and conquer swiftly, but I daresay that’s less’n acceptable hereabouts …”

“Mirt,” Rensharra Ironstave said crisply. “I’ve heard that name around the palace. You … sat upon the head of a certain wizard of war recently, I believe.”

“I did, and-”

She raised one hand and her voice with it, firmly interrupting whatever sly lewdness he was uttering. “I’d like to hear all about it. Over a bottle of whatever wine you recommend, if your offer to get me drunk on your coin is real, and not mere lust-hungry-lad babbling?”

Mirt recoiled. “Lady, lady, do not think for a moment that my offers are anything less than real! I stand by my utterances, I do, and-”

“Lord Mirt, you less than surprise me,” the lady clerk of the rolls informed him, and she turned to tell the server who’d just glided up to her table, “I’ll have whatever the gentlesir here feels moved to feed me.”

The server’s half-lidded, bored eyes opened wide, and he cast a swift glance at Mirt, who dispensed another of his exaggerated winks, leaving the server to struggle to control his customary mask of facial impassivity. He blurted out, “Very good, Goodwoman Ironstave,” spun around, and rushed away.

“I do believe you’ve scared the man,” Rensharra said reprovingly, discovering that she was genuinely enjoying herself-and her company-for the first time in, well, years …

“I, lady?” Mirt protested in mock horror. “I said nothing to him, nothing at all!”

“You, lord, don’t need to!” Rensharra replied, lifting her hand to him in the court manner.

A moment later, her always-cold fingers were clasped in a warm, hairy, yet gentle paw that did not tug at her, but conveyed her fingertips to lips ringed with a long, sweeping mustache that … tickled.

She giggled helplessly, whereupon Mirt released her, proffered his fourth bottle-the only one that wasn’t already empty-and inquired, “Will you begin getting drunk, lady? Just for me?”

Rensharra burst into a guffaw. The man was outrageous! Like a playful boar, or a gruff old minstrel lampooning a flamboyant noble a-wooing-and, by all the gods, she loved these coarse flirtations. She was, after all, in Thessarelle’s, where the staff knew her rank and position; one scream from her could have this man hustled away in a trice, so she was quite safe. Moreover, she’d spent too many lonely, melancholy evenings here toying with food that was superb, yet … wasted, somehow, when one dined alone. Bah! Let this be a night of adventure, where she would give as good as she got.

“I believe I will, Lord of Waterdeep,” she announced. “Providing you answer me truly, gallant Mirt. Is it true, what they say about men of Waterdeep?”

“Which saying, lady?”

“The one about driving hard until the tide turns?”