“Why?” Tanalasta whispered. “Have you… enspelled them?”
“Their wits, to compel them? No. Though most of the realm believes otherwise. Nor do kings leave me unchained out of fear, or hatred. Can you see your father fearing me?”
“Yes.” The crown princess was as white as her favorite snow-fur robe, her lips bloodless, but her whisper was firm.
The royal magician regarded her, smile gone again to leave his face old and expressionless, for long enough to make her quail, and said casually, “Well, perhaps he has grown wise enough to do so by now, at that. We’ll leave such considerations for another time, Princess, and return to the matters you must know and understand before another night comes. It is needful for you to know these things, that you be fit to serve the realm properly, when the day comes that you’re called upon to do so.”
Uncertainly, one of Tanalasta’s hands rose to her mouth. “When-when Father dies, and I… become queen?”
Vangerdahast’s face became severe again. “It is sincerely to be hoped that any princess of Cormyr will serve the realm fittingly, in many, many ways large and small, before she’s called upon to actually rule. There are other ways to serve than giving commands.”
“As you would know well,” Tanalasta murmured, the graceful verbal slash so like her mother that Vangerdahast, far from being angered, had to quell a grin. Ah, but the lass was an Obarskyr true, under that stonefaced mask and haughty starch! Best to ignore her comment and simply “Mage, why are you telling me this now?” Tanalasta was frowning at him in real concern. “What are you really trying to tell me, with Father off hunting more than a tenday, now; he’s all right, isn’t he?”
Chapter 6
Most of us fall afoul of the tangles our tongues make for us when we trade in falsehoods too seldom and too clumsily. Yet there are courtiers, peddlers, seers, and moneylenders who lie adroitly, and can spin deceptions within deceptions deftly, rather than desperately or unintentionally. They court discovery as do clumsier liars, but flirt also with another danger: weaving deceptions so well that they lose sight of who they are, and without perceiving it are themselves transformed by their own falsity.
Tarth Ammarander, Sage of Athkatla
World of Coins: Musings On Merchantry published in the Year of the Saddle
W e halt here,” Florin murmured, going to his knees in another place of rocks. Narantha had been clutching her arms and shivering for some time, and her face showed him how heartily sick she was of trees, trees, and more trees. She sank down beside him without a word.
“See, here?” Florin asked, reaching out a finger to trace a roughly scratched symbol of two ovals joined by an arc on a head-sized stone in front of him. Narantha nodded wearily.
“Remember it: this is a foresters’ cache. There are hundreds of them in the King’s Forest.” He rolled the stone aside to reveal a stone coffer set into the ground, a mossgirt cluster of other stones heaped around it. Florin had the coffer lid off in a trice, plunged a hand into the dank interior, and drew forth a leathery bundle that stank of mildew.
Inside, when he shook it out, was another pair of boots, a belt, a tunic, breeches, some rope, and a weathercloak. There was also a sack of something right at the bottom of the coffer, beside a scabbarded knife that was dark and sticky with something oily, and some arrows.
Florin drew out the sack, poured a handful of nuts onto a stone, and handed a smaller stone to the noblewoman. “Crush some of these and eat them.”
She gave him a glare then nodded and set to work. Nuts bounced and flew under her clumsy attack, but Florin paid no heed. As a breeze rose and rustled through the trees around them, he shook and laid out the clothing.
Narantha had just managed to crack her first nut without reducing it to powder, and was chewing and finding it pleasant enough-her mouth flooding with a sudden rush of hunger-when the forester said, “Stand up, and face yon tree.”
Wearily she rose, still chewing, and he drew her boots off. When she looked down at what he was bringing to her ankles, she started to protest-then threw her hands wide in exasperation, choked off whatever she’d been going to say, and cooperated as he drew the breeches up her legs. They were of stiff, stout hide, smelled a little of mildew, and gaped at the waist, twice the size of her own.
“Hold them up,” Florin murmured, sliding rope through belt-loops. Plucking her nightrobe up out of the way, he ran the hemp rope up and around her neck.
“What’re you-”
“Patience. Take off your robe.”
“ Sirrah, if you think I’m-”
“That’s why you’re facing that way, and I’m around here behind you. Take it off.”
With a weary sigh, her shiverings nigh-constant now, the Lady Crownsilver obeyed. Florin swiftly drew the rope tight into a suspender harness, plucking the robe from her hands and winding it around the rough-haired hempen to pad it and keep it from sawing at her skin. Cutting off the excess rope, he put the tunic over her head and the weathercloak over her shoulders-more mildew-and gathered the cloak at her waist with the belt. Getting her to sit down, he put her boots back on and carefully repacked them, massaging her feet where they’d rubbed raw. Narantha was mortified to discover that they’d acquired a faint but lingering smell.
“There,” Florin said, drawing her upright again. “That ought to-”
Narantha snatched her hand away. “Ought to, nothing. I look like a vagabond who’s stolen a floursack and tied it around herself. I’m not wearing this!”
Florin shrugged and stripped weathercloak and tunic away with a flourish. Untying the rope, he tugged twice-and the breeches fell in a tangle around shapely Crownsilver calves.
Shivering in her cloak of goosebumps, Narantha shrieked and sank down hastily, more out of discomfort than out of modesty.
“Gods naeth, the cold! ” she spat, her lips blue and trembling. The breeze quickened around her, almost mockingly.
Florin’s firm hand took hold of her neck and raised her upright again-for all the world as if he were a farmer, and she his chicken, Narantha thought savagely-to swiftly reclothe her. Mutely furious, she didn’t try to resist.
Smelling of mildew, hide hissing against hide with every step, the reclad fair flower of the Crownsilvers took a few tentative strides, a trifle warmer but no less miserable, sighed, and went looking for the nuts.
Florin was munching a handful of them, and holding a handful more-already shelled-out to her.
As she took them, the forester commanded, “On. Now. Eat as we walk. I don’t want to be anywhere near here when the light begins to fail.” He pointed at some fur caught in the bark of a nearby tree. “Bear,” he said darkly.
Narantha shook her head and looked down at herself. “I look like-like-” Words failed her, and she bit her lip and turned her head away, shaking it.
“A beautiful woman,” Florin replied, “whose beauty shines forth no matter what she’s wearing.”
When she looked at him disbelievingly, he winked.
“Oh, I hate you!” she snarled feelingly, giving him a glare.
Florin shrugged. “ ’Tis one way to get through life. Though too much hating eats away a person, inside. You’d do better to turn all that… verve… to loving, aiding, and helping. Young bride-hunting lordlings’ll be swarming all over you, swift enough, if you do.”
Narantha snorted. “ Those fops! Swaggering emptyheads, the lot of them! I doubt any of them can light a fire, or catch food, or-”
She stopped abruptly and looked away again, her face flaming.
Florin carefully said not a word.
