“I was born here,” Pennae said. “In Arabel, not all that many years ago.” She stretched then let her knees fall and stretched out on her back, bowed over the roofpeak with her hips closest to the stars. Florin turned onto his side so he could hear what she murmured next.
“My father I never knew. I gather he was here for but a season. A Purple Dragon of the garrison, who caught the eye of my mother: Maerthra Durshavin, not a bad pastry cook, but hard of hand, voice, and manner. She had few friends, drank much, and beat my bones raw until I fled. She’s dead these three winters, now.”
Pennae fell silent, stretching her lithe arms again, arching her shoulders-and wincing.
“Bruise there, that I knew not I had… anyhail, I made my own life. Ate what I could get, took all I could, hadn’t much to conquer Faerun with but my wits, my scampering, and my good balance and leaping about. Alone, always alone. Whenever I trusted someone else, they made me rue it soon enough.”
She let silence fall again.
“Ah, Pennae?” Florin’s voice was uncertain. “Have we Swords made you… rue trusting us?”
She sat up, managing to keep a flaring flame of amused satisfaction out of her eyes. Men were so predictable; so easily led by reins they didn’t even know they wore.
Nose to nose, she said huskily, “Not yet. I pray me: never.”
She let her voice become a desperate whisper. “Oh, Florin I am so tired of being alone.” She shaped the last words into a sob and opened her arms to him. When his lips timidly found hers, Pennae devoured them hungrily, rolling against him.
Yes, men were so predictable.
Her tongue entwined with Florin’s, Pennae glanced up at the stars overhead with eyes that smiled, and allowed herself one more prediction: there would be no more questions about her past this night.
Chapter 21
That’s the hard thing about life: things change. We hate it. We all hate it. Loved ones die. Friends drift away. Remember this: You can cling to nothing without harming it.
Ah, I’m afraid you’ve been sadly misled, Lady Greenmantle,” the elderly war wizard said. “These aren’t spell scrolls at all.”
He looked up from them, genuine sorrow in his eyes. Bleys Delaeyn was a kindly man, and it distressed him to think that someone had caused any upset to one of the kindest and most beautiful noblewomen he’d ever met. Still more that she’d been duped out of coins, and might well be angry with him for telling her so.
She’ll think I’ll rush back to my fellow Wizards of War to have a good laugh about her.
Lady Greenmantle was, indeed, looking upset. Her lower lip trembled, and what looked alarmingly like tears glimmered in her large emerald eyes.
“Lady,” Delaeyn said, “rest assured that this shall remain a secret between us, not shared with anyone else- even Lord Vangerdahast himself. I’m afraid you’ve been duped by a clever charlatan. If you’d like me to try to recover your coins by hunting him down with some of the best Crown agents Cormyr can muster, I’ll be happy to do so, but if my silence is what you prefer, I-”
Lady Greenmantle had somehow found her way around to his side of the table, and was plucking the offending sheets of parchment from his hand. As he stared at her, open-mouthed, she flung them over her shoulder, heedless of where they might fall, and faced him, their knees touching.
“Lord Wizard Delaeyn,” she whispered, “I care not a whit about spell scrolls or false scrolls, so long as you call me Amdranna, and bide here with me for a time. There is something I very much need you to do.”
Bleys Delaeyn blinked at her. “Uh, Lady, uh-”
“Amdranna,” she whispered, leaning forward to say the word almost into his mouth. Her bosom brushed against him, and Delaeyn was suddenly very much aware of her nearness, the spiced scent of her perfume, her softness, gliding against him…
“Uh, La- Amdranna, ” he almost wailed, leaning back from her, “what… what’re you doing? ”
“Seducing you,” she murmured, licking his throat and the edge of his jaw and leaving Delaeyn trembling with unaccustomed excitement-and the realization that his aging back wouldn’t bow away from her any farther. “If you’ll let me. For years I’ve admired you, Lord Delaeyn-”
“Uh, ah, I’m not actually a ‘lord’ of any s-sort, Lady-”
“Amdranna,” she told him sternly, crawling up him like an affectionate tressym until he was on his back, draped over the flaring arm of the bench, with her avid face poised above his. She reached up, nostrils flaring, and tore her gown with sudden ferocity.
“Amdranna, I-this is so sudden! I-”
“Don’t you want me?” she asked, sudden tears on her cheeks. “After I’ve dreamed of you so long?”
She ground herself against him, and a shuddering Bleys Delaeyn knew that he wanted her very much, and- and Her hands were at his belt and the lacings of his breeches, and he moaned a wordless protest and tried to throw her off, thrusting upward with his hips.
With a smile that was pure tressym she caught hold of his belt buckle and sat back up, pulling him with her. The buckle proved unequal to the strain, and came open-and in a trice Bleys Delaeyn found himself being towed across the room to a low couch right at the edge of the open stair that descended to the entryhall.
“Lady!” he hissed. “What if one of your servants sees-”
“Hush,” she said, and covered his mouth with hers as she dragged him down.
He shouldn’t be doing this, Delaeyn told himself, he was a long way from nineteen winters old, and an even longer way from Memories that faded like morning mist before her warm yielding, her hot kisses, her She was under him no longer, but above him, hair a wild tangle about her bare shoulders, eyes afire, bending down to him, falling sideways Oh, no, they were Amdranna Greenmantle rolled, tucking herself down tight beside the couch, shoulders slamming hard onto the stone floor. Her hands held the old mage’s sagging, hairy chest like claws, her knee came up into his crotch as she let go of him, and she twisted And with a startled, despairing cry, Wizard of War Bleys Delaeyn was hurled over the unguarded edge of the old stone stair.
The steps were of old, smooth-worn stone, some sixty feet down, and he greeted them headfirst. Lady Greenmantle listened to bone shatter and teeth spray, and then calmly rose and went to hide her torn gown-it was best kept, rather than tossed down a garderobe, in case she needed it to prove her claim of the old wizard going mad with lust and trying to force himself on her-and wash and redo her hair.
It had been so long since she’d seen to her tresses without the maids-like all the other servants, banished for the day-that she’d almost forgotten how. Almost.
The precious cigar was almost done. Taltar Dahauntul tasted its smoke and leaned back in his chair, in the heart of the aromatic blue cloud, with a contented sigh.
Narooran’s Finest were halfling-crafted, somewhere in Sembia-seemingly everything was crafted somewhere in Sembia-and all too rare. He hoarded his dwindling supply like the precious things they were. Even on an ornrion’s coins, they were dear, and the extra lions now falling into his lap for being Acting Captain of His Majesty’s Loyal Watch of Arabel wouldn’t last forever. Nothing did.
Aye, if there was one lesson long service as a Purple Dragon taught, to those who cared to learn, it was that nothing lasted. Things change.
Perhaps, one day, things would change for the better. Perhaps, though it was so hrastingly easy to put a foot wrong these days. Yet even those who disliked him respected him for being capable. The men called him “Dauntless,” and that was far better than “Old Ironbreeches” or “Idiot Screechtongue” or “Lord Stonehead the Sixth,” which is what they referred to his three immediate superiors as, among themselves.
