think I should let them come to the wedding, then?'
'You are a king now,' answered Drizzt, and he held out his hands as though that simple statement should explain everything. Bruenor's expression showed clearly that it did not, though, and so the equally stubborn dark elf promptly elaborated. 'Your responsibilities to your people lie in diplomacy. Drizzt explained. 'Nesme will be a valuable trading partner and a worthwhile ally. Besides, we can forgive the soldiers of an oft-imperiled town for their reaction to the sight of a dark elf.'
'Bah, ye're too soft-hearted, elf,' Bruenor grumbled, 'and ye're taking me along with ye!' He looked to the huge barbarian, obviously akin to Wulfgar, and nodded. 'Send out me welcome to Nesme, then, but I'll be needing a count o' them that's to attend!'
The barbarian cast an appreciative look at Drizzt, then bowed and was gone, though his departure did little to stop Bruenor's grumbling.
'A hunnerd things to do, elf,' the dwarf complained.
'You try to make your daughter's wedding the grandest the land has ever seen,' Drizzt remarked.
'I try,' Bruenor agreed. 'She's deserving it, me Catti-brie. I've tried to give her what I could all these years, but…' Bruenor held his hands out, inviting a visual inspection of his stout body, a pointed reminder that he and Catti-brie were not even of the same race.
Drizzt put a hand on his friend's strong shoulder. 'No human could have given her more,' he assured Bruenor.
The dwarf sniffled; Drizzt did well to hide his chuckle.
'But a hunnerd damned things!' Bruenor roared, his fit of sentimentality predictably short-lived. 'King's daughter has to get a proper wedding, I say, but I'm not for getting much help in doing the damned thing right!'
Drizzt knew the source of Bruenor's overblown frustration. The dwarf had expected Regis, a former guildmaster and undeniably skilled in etiquette, to help in planning the huge celebration. Soon after Regis had arrived in the halls, Bruenor had assured Drizzt that his troubles were over, that 'Rumblebelly'll see to what's needin' seein' to.'
In truth, Regis had taken on many tasks, but hadn't performed as well as Bruenor had expected or demanded. Drizzt wasn't sure if this came from Regis's unexpected ineptitude or Bruenor's doting attitude.
A dwarf rushed in, then, and handed Bruenor twenty different scrolls of possible layouts for the great dining hall. Another dwarf came in on the first one's heels, bearing an armful of potential menus for the feast.
Bruenor just sighed and looked helplessly to Drizzt.
'You will get through this,' the drow assured him. 'And Catti-brie will think it the grandest celebration ever given.' Drizzt meant to go on, but his last statement gave him pause and a concerned expression crossed his brow that Bruenor did not miss.
'Ye're worried for the girl,' the observant dwarf remarked.
'More for Wulfgar,' Drizzt admitted.
Bruenor chuckled. 'I got three masons at work to fixing the lad's walls,' he said. 'Something put a mighty anger in the boy.'
Drizzt only nodded. He had not revealed to anyone that he had been Wulfgar's target on that particular occasion, that Wulfgar probably would have killed him blindly if the barbarian had won.
'The boy's just nervous,' Bruenor said.
Again the drow nodded, though he wasn't certain he could bring himself to agree. Wulfgar was indeed nervous, but his behavior went beyond that excuse. Still, Drizzt had no better explanations, and since the incident in the room, Wulfgar had become friendly once more toward Drizzt, had seemed more his old self.
'He'll settle down once the day gets past,' Bruenor went on, and it seemed to Drizzt that the dwarf was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. This, too, Drizzt understood, for Catti-brie, the orphaned human, was Bruenor's daughter in heart and soul. She was the one soft spot in Bruenor's rock-hard heart, the vulnerable chink in the king's armor.
Wulfgar's erratic, domineering behavior had not escaped the wise dwarf, it seemed. But, while Wulfgar's attitude obviously bothered Bruenor, Drizzt did not believe the dwarf would do anything about it-not unless Catti- brie asked him for help.
And Drizzt knew that Catti-brie, as proud and stubborn as her father, would not ask-not from Bruenor and not from Drizzt.
'Where ye been hiding, ye little trickster?' Drizzt heard Bruenor roar, and the dwarf's sheer volume startled Drizzt from his private contemplations. He looked over to see Regis entering the hall, the halfling looking thoroughly flustered.
'I ate my first meal of the day!' Regis shouted back, and he got a sour look on his cherubic face and put a hand on his grumbling tummy.
'No time for eating!' Bruenor snapped back. 'We got a-'
'Hunnerd things to do,' Regis finished, imitating the dwarf's rough accent and holding up his chubby hand in a desperate plea for Bruenor to back off.
Bruenor stomped a heavy boot and stormed over to the pile of potential menus. 'Since ye're so set on thinking about food,…' Bruenor began as he gathered up the parchments and heaved them, showering Regis. 'There'll be elves and humans aplenty at the feast,' he explained as Regis scrambled to put the pile in order. 'Give 'em something their sensitive innards'll take!'
Regis shot a pleading look at Drizzt, but when the drow only shrugged in reply, the halfling picked up the parchments and shuffled away.
'I'd've thought that one'd be better at this wedding planning stuff,' Bruenor remarked, loudly enough for the departing halfling to hear.
'And not so good at fighting goblins,' Drizzt replied, remembering the halfling's remarkable efforts in the battle.
Bruenor stroked his thick red beard and looked to the empty doorway through which Regis had just passed. 'Spent lots of time on the road beside the likes of us,' the dwarf decided.
'Too much time,' Drizzt added under his breath, too quietly for Bruenor to hear, for it was obvious to the drow that Bruenor, unlike Drizzt, thought the surprising revelations about their halfling friend a good thing.
A short while later, when Drizzt, on an errand for Bruenor, neared the entrance to Cobble's chapel, he found that Bruenor was not the only one flustered by the hectic preparations for the upcoming wedding.
'Not for all the mithril in Bruenor's realm!' he heard Catti-brie emphatically shout.
'Be reasonable,' Cobble whined back at her. 'Yer father's not asking too much.'
Drizzt entered the chapel to see Catti-brie standing atop a pedestal, hands resolutely on her slender hips, and Cobble down low before her, holding out a gem-studded apron.
Catti-brie regarded Drizzt and gave a curt shake of her head. 'They're wanting me to wear a smithy's apron!' she cried. 'A damned smithy's apron on the day o' me wedding!'
Drizzt prudently realized that this was not the time to smile. He walked solemnly to Cobble and took the apron.
'Battlehammer tradition,' the cleric huffed.
'Any dwarf would be proud to wear the raiment,' Drizzt agreed. 'Must I remind you, though, that Catti-brie is no dwarf?'
'A symbol of subservience is what it is,' the auburn-haired woman spouted. 'Dwarven females are expected to labor at the forge all the day. Not ever have I lifted a smithy's hammer, and…'
Drizzt calmed her with an outstretched hand and a plaintive look.
'She's Bruenor's daughter,' Cobble pointed out. 'She has a duty to please her father.'
'Indeed,' Drizzt, the consummate diplomat, agreed once more, 'but remember that she is not marrying a dwarf. Catti-brie has never worked the forge-'
'It's symbolic,' Cobble protested.
'— and Wulfgar lifted the hammer only during his years of servitude to Bruenor, when he was given no choice,' Drizzt finished without missing a beat.
Cobble looked to Catti-brie, then back to the apron, and sighed. 'We'll find a compromise,' he conceded.
Drizzt threw a wink Catti-brie's way and was surprised to realize that his efforts apparently had not
