Given such encouragement, they should linger long and drink freely.
Lark turned to her mistresses. 'You're certain you don't want me to stay?'
Naoni shook her head. 'Things are well in hand.' Leaning close, she whispered, 'Faen'll serve the men warmly; she knows how fine she looks in that gown.'
They traded grins. 'Off with you, then,' Naoni added more loudly. ''Twon't do to be late on your second night at the Notch.'
Lark undid her apron and put it in Naoni's hand. 'There's something you should know,' she said softly. 'All day someone's been following us.'
Naoni smiled gently. 'My halfling guardians.'
'Not so.' Faendra's hearing was very keen when she wanted it to be. 'I glimpsed him, too-never a really good look, but 'twas a man, not a halfling.'
'I see,' Naoni murmured, looking at her bruised wrists. 'Perhaps we shouldn't tell Father. You saw him when he heard about the street battle; I don't want to worry him.'
Lark frowned. 'Mayhap you should worry him. If he minded his own family more, he might have less time to poke about in the Lords' business.' Remembering Elaith Craulnober's demands, she asked, 'Speaking of which, where's he steering the New Day now? He's not one to take deaths of his men lightly.'
Naoni sighed. 'Father's been all too quiet since the battle. I wish I knew what to think of that.'
Faendra's eyes danced. 'Perhaps he put a guard to watch us. If so, one of the men will know.' Her smile became a purr. 'And they'll tell me everything I want them to.'
Where once they might have rolled their eyes, Naoni and Lark now nodded approval.
'Tell me all about it in the morning,' the maid told her mistresses. 'I'm off to the Notch.'
The steward's pantry at the Notch was already bustling. An unfamiliar voice, humming nigh her elbow, made Lark look up from the scrawled table assignments, her fingers still tugging at the knot of her apron.
A tall elf maiden she'd never seen before stood beside her tying on another server's apron. Lark tried not to stare at her striking good looks: Moon-pale skin and night-black hair framing a narrow, angular face dominated by eyes the color of new leaves.
Lark blinked, hoping the aristocratic features didn't mean haughtiness to match, but the new server smiled, asked Lark's name, and laughed in delight at the answer.
'How perfect! I'm Ezriel: 'song bird.' It's well we're working together. As the old saying runs, L'hoira doutrel mana soutrel.'
'Birds of a feather fly together?' guessed Lark.
Green eyes widened. 'You speak Elvish?'
'No, but if one serves drink to men long enough, one hears a lot of old sayings,' she said dryly, 'most of them more along the lines of, 'If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?''
Ezriel chuckled. 'Surely not!'
'A wager: A copper to you if the night passes without some drunken guildsman trotting that offering out, but a nib to me each time you hear it.'
'Done!' A shadow passed briefly across the narrow face. 'Though if I lose, you may have to dig your winnings out from under the speakers' thumbnails, for that's the coin I'll be tempted to pay for such compliments.'
Lark winced. 'That's… inventive.'
A sour look from the steward sent them scurrying to tend tables, and there was little time for more talk. Yet as the night wore on, Lark found her gaze turning Ezriel's way more often than was strictly polite. In fact, she found it hard not to stare.
Not many elves served tables in Waterdeep, and there'd been even fewer in Luskan. Lark had little experience of the Fair Folk, and this willow-slim beauty seemed woefully out of place in a South Ward dining-den. She looked as if she should be wearing fine gowns and reclining on silken pillows idly strumming a lyre with a peacock quill.
Lark grimaced at that fancy. Such thoughts were for idle lords and their fancy ladies, not a practical worker like herself!
The elf emerged from the kitchen bearing a large, steaming platter of sea harake, and Lark found herself hurrying over to help.
'Let me carry that,' she said firmly, taking its handles. ''Tis hot; there's no sense in you spoiling your hands.'
Ezriel gave her a keen look, as if she suspected mockery. Seeing none, she extended her hands, palms up.
'That's kind of you, but as you can see, I'm no delicate flower.' She ran her thumb proudly over the calluses on the fingertips of her left hand then the hard ridge on her upper palm.
Lark's smile froze. Both of her own hands were similarly marked from years of handwork. She glanced quickly at the elf's right palm.
Its pale skin was as smooth as a courtesan's, and the elf's left forearm, though slender, was slightly more muscled than the right. Lark knew of only one kind of work that left such signs, and it didn't involve serving tables.
The smile she gave Ezriel was wry. 'Forgive me my misjudgment. I'll serve this fish to the hearthside table if you'll get their drinks.'
The elf nodded and glided over to the bar. Lark watched her from the corner of her eye as she served the harake.
At a table near the bar, a trio of master tailors was laughing uproariously over their fourth round of mead. One pinched Ezriel as she walked past.
She whirled, left hand darting to her hip, and the flat warrior's stare she leveled at the tailor made her eyes look as cold as green ice.
Lark looked away quickly, laughing perhaps a bit too heartily at whatever cleverness the nearest harake-loving Calishite merchant had just said to her. She dodged deftly away from his groping hand-and froze as she saw Elaith Craulnober, sitting alone at a small table near the door.
He lifted one elegant hand in an imperious beckoning. Drawing a deep breath, Lark threaded her way to him, snatching up one of the small dishes of salt-smoked mussels that served as this night's thirst-starter.
'Evening, milord,' she said brightly, setting the dish before him. 'What may I bring you to drink with this?'
The moon elf eyed the grayish blobs with distaste. 'The only fitting choice would be a large flagon of hemlock. Take this excrement away and bring me some deep-ocean fish, prepared as simply as possible. A bottle of elverquisst if you have it. If not, a pale wine, unwatered.'
'Of course. Anything else?'
'What do you have?' he asked softly, his look making it clear he meant information, not seafood.
'Very little,' she murmured, bending low to take up the spurned mussels. 'Several workmen were killed or injured in the brawl, and Dyre's had time for little else, but someone followed his daughters-and me, of course- wherever we went today.'
'Don't you find it of passing interest that the proprietor of Maelstrom's Notch has taken to hiring warrior-elves to befriend the help?'
'How did you-' She broke off abruptly, not wanting to offend him.
Elaith looked faintly amused. 'She's as out of place here as a unicorn among cow rothe. No offense intended.'
Lark bit back a retort. After all, hadn't she thought much the same?
'Give your shadow no more thought,' the Serpent murmured. 'I'll see to that matter. In return, I need you to relieve young Lord Hawkwinter of the silver-hued charm he wears about his neck.'
As Lark nodded, it occurred to her that they'd been talking for longer than she could readily explain away. She glanced toward the steward-and met his hard, unfriendly stare.
Turning back to Elaith, she blurted, 'Begging your pardon, milord, but perhaps you should pinch my backside, or… something.'
Silvery eyebrows rose.
'To explain why I've been here so long,' she explained hastily. 'They expect serving wenches to parry men's
