“I see,” Narantha said icily. “And just how do you expect me to wash in… that?”
“Take off your clothes, sit down there-there’s a sandbar under the water, see? — to scoop up sand, and scrub yourself with it. Stings a bit, but you’ll be done soon enough, and I’ll crush some ardanthe sap into your hair. It has a nice smell.”
“And how will I dry myself?”
Florin pointed up at the sun then through the trees at a large boulder. “Lie down on that and bake until you’re dry enough to get dressed.”
“While you leer and look. And you seriously expect me to do that?”
“I hold no expectations, Lady, but I’ve been given to understand that many nobles of our realm are from time to time sensible. I’m hoping you’re one of them.”
Eyes flaming, Narantha clenched her fists and stepped up nose to nose with him-she had to look up to do it, which made her even more furious, and she was already seething. “Do you know who I am, knave? Do you know who I am? ”
Florin’s blue-gray eyes bored into hers. “Lady, increasingly I am learning what you are: a bone-idle, arrogant, spoiled chit of a girl. You seem to spend most of your labor in tirades and cursings, berating me because you find fault with my service-the service I tender out of kindness and my duty to the realm, not out of any obligation to you, or coin-hire. There’s an expression about ‘only a leucrotta being crazed enough to bite the hand that feeds it.’ Well, Lady, you’re a leucrotta.”
“How dare you speak to me so! Why, if it weren’t for the nobility-nobles like me-Cormyr would be all backcountry louts starving and grubbing in the dirt, bedding their sisters and mothers and having no law but that of the fist, and no tongue but gruntings! How dare you!?”
“Someone should have dared, long ago, and done so as often as it took to break you of this serenely wrong view of the ways of the world. Hear this, Narantha, and hear it well: Faerun is not going to change to your will. Either you must change to dwell in it, or it will break you.”
Florin slid his pack off his shoulder and added, “You’ve been doing this for so long that your tirades are almost a habit: the way you always deal with anything that displeases you. Count yourself favored of Tymora that I’m not the backcountry lout you see all of us common folk as-or I’d have silenced you forever with the back of my hand, or at least until you woke up with your head still ringing, and started crawling around looking for your lost teeth. We are schooled and taught courtesies, we commoners, and one of them is never to hit a woman-for women are the nurturers who keep families strong and therefore the realm strong. However, just now, my schooling is on the very sword-edge of slipping.”
Falling abruptly silent, Florin whirled around and stalked away to the stream, tearing off his clothes as he went.
Leaving Narantha staring at his back, open-mouthed.
His bare back. She blinked.
She closed her mouth, firmly, and turned her head away. How dare he speak thus! Why did he refuse to know his place, and keep to it? Why She looked toward the stream, and hastily turned away again. Gods, he was using sand.
She shuddered, tramped to the high boulder, and started watching for beasts. Ones that weren’t wet and hairy, and cheerfully sporting right over there in the stream.
Chapter 7
Far from being a traitor, I do love Cormyr. Deeply. Which is why I intend to raise an army and go back to the fair Forest Kingdom, slaughter every last Obarskyr, war wizard, king’s lord, and Purple Dragon in it, and claim every stride of its soil as my own.
Sorn Merendil
The Obarsk yrs Must Die (pamphlet) published in the Year of Moonfall
R eady?”
Jhessail nodded, and Islif brought the cudgel forward from her shoulder in a hard, fast throw that sent it end-over-end across the meadow, to crash down into the midst of the tangle of briars.
As expected, a rabbit shot forth, racing like the wind. Jhessail murmured, pointed, and a vivid blue bolt of magic lashed out, racing arrow-swift The rabbit changed direction, very swiftly. In a few moments it would zag again, then stop to Just as sharply, the magic missile turned in the air to follow its racing quarry-and lanced home.
The bunny turned a cartwheel in the air and thudded back to earth, where it lay still.
“Rose of Moander!” Islif gasped, growing a broad grin. “You did it!”
Jhessail’s answering cry was lost in a sudden chorus of barks and bays. Over the shoulder of the meadow came an all-too-familiar torrent of teeth and loping legs and burr-bedecked, flea-ridden coats. Hearing their voices, though they weren’t on Estle land, Belkur Estle had loosed his dogs.
Islif growled her annoyance and ran for her cudgel.
Jhessail took an uncertain step back-then stepped forward again, looking determined. She had but the one missile, but if she could down Old One-Eye, their leader, the others might well draw off in confusion.
Or so she hoped.
Islif waded into briars, cursing, but turned as One-Eye’s rising growl of menace suddenly turned into a yelp- and just as suddenly fell silent, as if cut off by a knife.
Or a spell.
The lead dog of Estle’s pack, it seemed, would never be a belligerent terror in the Esparran fields again.
The others were barking furiously at Jhessail-but they were doing so stiff-legged, leaping back and forth in a line of not-daring that confronted her, their headlong charge broken.
Islif laid hands on her cudgel and burst out of the briars in a roaring charge of her own.
To the dogs, she was a familiar foe, and they had bruises and stiffnesses of broken ribs a-plenty to remind them of her prowess. Their barkings rose higher and more fearful, marking their hasty retreat.
“Well done!” Doust called in cheerful greeting, as he and Semoor came out of Rorth Urtree’s woodlot together.
“Ah, the two holy men. Arriving just too late to be useful, as usual,” Islif replied. “Saw you the spells?”
“Of course. We’re foolish, not blind. Shall we start a fire to cook the bunny, or did Jhess’s spell cook it for us?”
Islif reached for her belt knife. “We’ll have to find out. Yet, look you, we can be true adventurers now: We have our wizard!”
“True adventurers,” Jhessail echoed thoughtfully as they gathered around her. “I wonder where Florin is?”
“Mother Mielikki, that feels better!” Florin said, stretching. Water pattered on leaves as he clambered onto the boulder. His rippling muscles were magnificent, and he gave Narantha a bright smile as he joined her.
She broke off staring at him and looked away quickly, blushing.
“Your turn,” he announced, and when she looked up at him again, she discovered he’d assumed a hero’s pose: exact mimicry of the balled fists and sternly lifted chin of the famous statue of King Dhalmass Surveying The Realm. Oh, yes, there was supposed to be a copy of it on Espar’s village green, wasn’t there?
The effect was hilarious, and she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling. Florin moved one eye sidelong to give her a wink, and she looked away again, knowing he could see her suppressing her mirth.
When she looked back at him this time, their gazes met, and she blushed a deep scarlet, but kept her eyes on his and asked curiously, “That scar on your hand; how came you by it?”
“Dragon breath. Back when I was young, I was foolish-rather than the wise elder of the realm I am now. A caravan merchant had a pet red dragon he was taking to sell in Sembia, where the real fools live. It was about the size of a large dog-a wolfhound-and I made the mistake of trying to pet it.”
