Semoor stirred, growing a smile-but Martess lifted her boot deftly under the table, and in sudden, gasping agony the novice of Lathander bent his head and said nothing.
“I agree to this,” Florin said, “but can speak only for myself. Pennae? Jhessail?”
“I agree to this,” both women echoed, finished their drinks, and rose. Around them, chatter started up again, and the air of confrontation faded away with the silence that had heralded it.
The Purple Dragons converged warily on Florin, Pennae, and Jhessail as the three walked with Dauntless to the door. Florin nodded to the tavernmaster as if he were royalty rather than under arrest, plucked a gold coin from his purse, and tossed it to the man.
At his next stride, his gaze happened to fall on a table along the wall beside the door, where a weary-looking woman-a shopkeeper, by her garb-was drinking alone. Their eyes met, and Florin blinked.
He’d have sworn he’d never laid eyes on this woman before, yet her face looked somehow familiar.
No, not her face-her eyes. Dark blue, wise, knowing. Yes, he’d looked into those eyes before! Recently, of course… in a tavern?
Dark blue depths… that flared silver, just for an instant An instant that left Florin remembering nothing of them at all, and trudging out of the Lion with Dragons before him and behind him.
“We can’t find Greenmantle,” a young war wizard snapped, striding past. “She seems to have disappeared completely.”
Laspeera sighed, took Godal by the shoulder, and steered him through a door into a robing room. “Put something on, and let’s talk.”
The tall, aging war wizard nodded and went to the row of wardrobes. Laspeera brewed thornapple tea, and had a steaming goblet of it waiting for him when he sat down with her, smiled, and waved at her to begin.
Laspeera hesitated not a moment. “Why didn’t you go into Lady Yellander’s mind when she first made her advances? ’Twasn’t as if she usually treated you so familiarly. You must have been suspicious.”
“Lady,” Godal said, inhaling the scent of the too-hot tea, “ I have scruples.”
“Fiddlebats, Az! You went into her head fast enough, later!”
Godal cupped his hands around his goblet, looked into its depths, and said, “I didn’t want to know if she had… dark motives. After all these years, just once, I wanted it to be real.”
“Oh, Azimander,” Laspeera said softly, leaning across the table to put her arms around him.
Godal set his tea down with a trembling hand and hugged her tightly. After a breath or two, he started to cry.
“By the blood of Alathan,” Semoor cursed, giving Martess a dark look for her kick to his cods, “ now what?”
“I’d like to feed that ornrion his own sw-”
“Agannor,” Islif said in a low voice that rang with hard steel to match the glare she gave him, “still thy tongue. Right now. There could be watch spies sitting at every table around us. Just belt up-and listen.”
“We’re listening,” Bey said, elbowing his friend.
Agannor scowled but nodded, as Islif leaned forward over the table and said, “I’d like the two of you to remain here in the Lion to meet Florin, Pennae, and Jhessail when they return. Depart for our rooms at Rhalseer’s if they don’t appear by closing time, or if any sort of brawl erupts or anyone tries to make trouble for you-and for the love of all the watching gods, don’t get drunk and don’t pick any fights yourselves!”
Bey nodded, and Islif reached across the table to take Agannor’s hand and mutter, eyes fixed on his, “Agannor, you have a temper. Conquer it, and ride it well, for all our sakes. Our healing quaffs are back at Rhalseer’s, remember?”
With a sigh, she added, “Martess, I hate to ask this of you, but I need one of us, right now, to get out there and trail the watch to see where they take Florin, Pennae, and Jhessail, and you’re the least noticeable of us all-”
“You needn’t ask,” Martess said, springing to her feet, “for I’m glad to do so. I’m gone!”
And she was, ducking and darting among the tables. “All of you,” Islif said, “watch to see if anyone follows her out of here. Doust and Semoor, come with me. Our first task will be to stop anyone who follows Martess, and our second to find new lodgings. I think our time at Rhalseer’s is just about over.”
“I think you’re right about that,” Doust agreed.
“And I,” Agannor said darkly, “am afraid you’re right about that.”
Horaundoon smiled down at his scrying orb.
“Well, now,” he said, setting down what little was left of his haunch of roast boar, “Islif certainly seems like a proper war commander. I wonder if she’s been the real leader-her and bright little Pennae-all along?”
The hargaunt’s trill told him it certainly thought so.
He wondered briefly how much hargaunts learned of humans, then shrugged, gnawed one last time on his boar, washed his hands in the bowl of petal-water, and hurried from his spellchamber.
A floor down, he rapped on the door of the rooms shared by two busy and popular lowcoin lasses. Kestra and Taeriana were rather slow to open their door, for neither of them was alone, and a hurried customer is a poorly paying customer-but when they did open to him, the men they’d been entertaining departing by the door that opened out onto the end stairs, he smiled into their eyes, mastered their minds easily with the magic he had ready-and sent them into a whirlwind of donning cloaks and boots over their daring silks, and hurrying out to the Lion.
The robing room door opened. Arms still around Godal, Laspeera looked up to see who was there. Just for a moment, she looked astonished.
Then she glared.
Lady Rharaundra Yellander, an ill-fitting war wizard robe draped around her shoulders, was closing the door behind her.
Laspeera said not a word, letting her silent glare speak for her.
The noblewoman stared back at her, looking miserable, and said quaveringly, “Vangerdahast is going to do something to my mind.”
“And so?”
“And so,” Lady Yellander whispered fiercely, stepping forward, “before I forget everything of who I am and what I’ve done, there’s something I find I want to do, first. Vangerdahast has given me permission-if Azimander will.”
She reached out her hand almost beseechingly to Azimander Godal.
Slowly uncurling from where he was huddled against Laspeera, the old war wizard looked up at her. Then, slowly, he reached out and took the noblewoman’s hand.
She drew him to his feet and into her embrace, asking Laspeera, “Do you have a bed anywhere around here? Or a table someone’s not using?”
Lord Maniol Crownsilver stared, blinked, and stared again.
However, the purposefully striding dark-robed figures didn’t go away. In fact, they came swiftly closer, hurrying down his grandest passage straight at him.
“What by all the Nine Hells — ? ” he snarled, reaching for the intricate hilt of his ornamented sword.
There came no reply, though the somber gaze of the good-looking woman who walked at their fore measured him. Coolly.
“Just who by the Dungfaced Dragon do you think you are,” he addressed her, “bursting into my home like this?”
The intruders slowed not a whit, and an infuriated Lord Crownsilver spread his hands and awakened all the rings, bracers, and wristlets on them to glowing, menacing life. “Come one step nearer-!”
The woman gestured, and the air around Maniol Crownsilver seemed to freeze-an icy grip that settled around his heart and throat and left him gasping.
“If by ‘Dungfaced Dragon’ you mean the king,” she said coldly, “you can unsay those words right now, Lord Crownsilver. We are Wizards of War, here on Crown business. If your wife hadn’t spellguarded her chambers-and when did she master such Art without a word to anyone, Lord? — we’d have teleported there and you’d never even have seen us. I am Tsantress of the Wizards of War, ‘bursting into’ here, as you put it, on the explicit orders of the Lord Vangerdahast, to apprehend a traitor to the realm.”
“A trait- Jalassa? ” Maniol Crownsilver was incredulous, and looked it.
