Chapter 4
Of that night, I remember mercifully little
Beyond too many friends falling dead
And striking aside swords in the rain.
'Ho, now! Hold hard there, my lad! Where d’ye be going, so hasty-like, on a night like-”
This voice was deeper than the first drunkard’s had been, and came with a reek of stale drink that was almost stupefying. Alusair reared back, bringing her sword and dagger up between her and that half-seen face. The hand abruptly let go.
It returned, coming in a little lower, thrusting past her bared steel to press hard into her chest and send her staggering back. “ Away with that war-steel!”
Then the drunkard made a surprised sound at what his fingers had found, and growled, “A lass? A lass, out in the night like this? Running from a murder, are ye?”
“Nay,” Alusair said, trying to make her voice snap in command as she’d heard her father do many a time, “but there will be a murder in this alley if you lay hands on me again!”
“Whoa, now! Easy!” The reply seemed a step or two farther away, as if the man had retreated. “A lass, light-dressed, out in the rain and the night with no lantern, carrying war-steel unsheathed… a slip of a lass, too, with a sword too heavy for her by half… ye’re an acolyte of Tempus, ye are!”
He sounded almost proud, as if he’d won some sort of prize. “The Lord of Battles keep ye and honor ye, Swordmaiden! Fair even to ye, and pray accept the apologies of ol’ Dag Runsarr-not the least of the King’s Dragons, in my day! Saw the king himself I did, once!”
Alusair resisted the urge to tell old Dag that she’d seen the King of Cormyr a thousand thousand times, and sometimes felt she saw far too much of him, yet at the same time not enough. “Fair even, Dag Runsarr,” she said, instead. “Tempus defend thee and watch over thee.”
That grand speech was rather spoiled by a sudden loud grumble from her stomach. Old Dag chuckled and shuffled off down the alley, in the direction she’d come. Leaving the youngest princess of Cormyr suddenly aware of just how hungry she was. She’d last eaten at morningfeast, and last sipped some spiced clarry just after high-sun… and the night was well begun, now.
A tavern. A tavern would still be serving food. So would a feasting hall, but she had no idea if Arabel even had any fine feasting halls. So a tavern it would be.
Alusair hurried along the alley and came out into a narrow cobbled street lit by two lonely, distant hanging lamps. She could see nothing but houses in either direction-and the alley continuing on, across the road. She crossed, returning to the darkness almost thankfully. A distant dog barked, but she knew she had little to fear: dogs in Arabel were working beasts, and only fools let their workers stand out in rainstorms to get chilled and fall sick. It would be a rare alley that would have wild dogs waiting for her. Rats, now…
That cheerful thought carried her right into a smell that made her stomach complain again. Stew!
Just ahead, where the alley met with another street, and started to reek like men spewing up too much ale, was a small, dingy tavern, its signboard dangling from one hook and too dark to read anyway. Light was spilling out into the night all around its warped, ill-fitting door. Much chatter came from within, and pipesmoke too. Reversing sword and dagger downward, and transferring them both into one hand, Princess Alusair thrust open the door and stepped inside.
The taproom was small, low-ceilinged, thick with drifting smoke, and crowded. She paused for a moment, expecting the room to fall silent in reverence, but no one seemed to so much as notice her-one more wet, bedraggled visitor from the night outside. When she peered around, she saw a few eyebrows, here and there, lifting in surprise at the blades in her hand and then at her gender, but everyone looked away, and no one remarked. Wise Arabellans tended not to comment on such things.
Alusair found an empty table and sank thankfully down into its lone chair, setting her blades carefully on the table and running her fingers back through her sodden hair to get it out of her eyes. Two none-too-clean men facing each other over tankards at the next table leered at her and then turned back to their converse. Their noses were long and sharp, their eyes sharper. Alusair ducked her head a little so the curtain of her wet hair hid her eyes from them, and tried not to seem like she was listening.
“Darthil, see the one in green? That’s him,” one of the sharp-nosed men said.
The other turned a ring on his tankard hand a little with his thumb. The ring caught the candlelight with a flash, and Alusair saw it had been polished mirror-bright-to serve, in fact, as a mirror.
“Aha. My, he’s the prance-dandy, isn’t he? We’ll deal with him later,” the other muttered. “But Mhaulo, tell me: Who’s the old mountain of meat beside him? His bodyguard we’ll have to fight?”
“No, far from it. Another he owes coin to, more likely. Gulkar has no bodyguards, not after-” Mhaulo cast a glance across the taproom at the white-haired, heavily muscled man sitting beside Gulkar, turned back in almost the same movement, and said with a smirk, “That, Darth, is Durnhelm Draggar Lenth B. Stormgate.”
Darthil lifted an eyebrow. “He’s called all that? No wonder he has shoulders that broad, if he has to carry all those names around. What’s the ‘B’ for?”
Mhaulo’s smirk widened. “Blade. But I’m not done; ’tis better than that. Old Durn asked his mother why he was called Durnhelm Draggar Lenth. She said those were her best three guesses as to who’d sired him.”
Darthil sighed. “Her last three lovers?”
“Her brothers.”
Darthil gave Mhaulo a decidedly disbelieving look, lifted his tankard, and said cautiously, “ ’Tis a good thing she only had three brothers.”
“Oh, I don’t think that matters all that much. Blade was the name of her horse.”
Princess Alusair suspected her face was reddening, and turned away swiftly to lean her chin in her hand and so block any view Mhaulo or Darthil might have of her. She found herself facing a weary-looking woman in an apron, who’d just stopped by her table and asked, “What’ll it be, good-lass?”
“That stew I’m smelling, and-” Alusair caught sight of some sweet buns on another table, and pointed. “Oh, and what wines d’you have?”
The serving maid’s voice sharpened. “None, lass, ’til the new vintage comes in. High-coin cellars are for grander houses. Here in the Hound, we serve good honest ale.” She started to turn away, and then said, “And being as you’re not wearing a face I know and you’ve blades bare on the table before you, I’d best ask for coin up front.”
Alusair stared at her. “Why-” She started to make the airy gesture that would refer the maid to the chamberlain at her shoulder, and then remembered there wasn’t any chamberlain at her shoulder.
And princesses a-prowling around the Palace didn’t carry purses full of coins at their belts. She had nothing.
Panic stabbed at her-until something caught the candlelight, on the table in front of her, and she remembered she was wearing several rings besides the magic one that had brought her here.
The plainest was a band of plain gold surmounted by a single small, dainty pearl. She twisted it, hoping her wet fingers would let it come off easily, and the gods smiled on her. Alusair held it up triumphantly. “With this.”
The serving-woman’s eyes widened, and she pointed at the sword and dagger. “Lass,” she said helplessly, as heads turned at tables all around them. “Lass, you didn’t slice up a husband with those and go running out into the storm, did you? Tell truth, now.”
Alusair blinked at the woman angrily, and then drew herself up in her chair, throwing her shoulders back as she’d seen courtiers do all her life, and snapped, “I always tell the truth. The realm depends upon it.”
