Naoni knelt, placed a small spray of blueburst on the marker that read 'Ilyndeira Dyre,' and then sat back on her heels to wait for memories of her mother to ease her heart.
Or, perhaps, firm her resolve.
Ilyndeira Dyre had loved a noble and come to grief because of it. Naoni had known this since her twelfth summer, after her mother's death, when she'd found Ilyndeira's hidden journal, letters, and a few sad little keepsakes. Her mother had never forgotten, and Naoni had sworn she'd never forget, either. Yet when she looked into Korvaun Helmfast's steady blue eyes, she found herself in danger of breaking the oath she'd sworn over her mother's grave.
He seemed a good man, and growing into his own before her eyes. Quiet ways and all, Korvaun was fast becoming a leader of men; she'd seen his friends' faces when they looked to him, and she was only a guildsmaster's daughter and housekeeper, a simple spinner of threads. He was courteous to commonborn women, and had honored a servant girl at the funeral, before many nobles. None of that swept away the fact that he was a noble of Waterdeep.
Everything was happening so fast. Father had come roaring home, bellowing orders and all but dragging them from the house! She'd barely had time enough to seize her spinning tools before he hustled them to an inn. Faendra, of course, had been pleased at the novelty and the prospect of some leisure, but Naoni wanted silence and solitude, the solace of soft shadows, in green places like this one. Grand folk had their private gardens and arbors, but this garden of the dead was the only haven available to the likes of Naoni Dyre.
So she sat in silence, waiting for the quiet green peace to find its way into her heart.
'Another building's down! The Lords did it!'
Heads turned as the shout rang back off magnificently carved tomb walls.
The City of the Dead was crowded with folk escaping the stink of Dock Ward fish-boilings and a harbor dredging. There had been many mutters of 'The New Day, they call themselves!' and 'Piergeiron's dead, and they've shoved someone else into his armor to fool us! He crossed some Hidden Lord or other, and they killed him for it!' and even darker sentiments as peddlers and stroll-cooks moved through the throngs.
There was a restless mood in the parklike cemetery. The Watch patrols, walking their usual patrols, felt it. As angry talk swelled around them, they kept their mouths shut and pretended not to hear, where at other times they'd have stepped forward to warn and remonstrate.
Nor were they the only ones treading lightly in the cemetery. Highcoin folk who might on other occasions have loudly called on the Watch to chastise and more, kept their peace and walked warily, listening instead of airily voicing opinions.
'The Lords are driving Dyre down, building by building!'
Heads turned.
'What's that? What building?' a merchant bellowed, in a voice that rang out like a warhorn.
'The Lords are smashing the New Day!' someone else shouted, bringing inevitable calls of, 'What's the New Day?'
Folk were gathering quickly, striding frown-faced from bowers behind more distant burial halls. In the darker shadows of the tombs, half-seen ghostly shapes stirred restlessly, called forth into the sunlight by the sudden anger and fear riding the air.
'The Lords are against us all!' a man roared, waving his belt-knife.
A woman standing near shrieked, 'They can blast down all our homes, and take our coins from among our bones, and build anew!'
'They're hunting Varandros Dyre in the streets right now,' a breathless cap-merchant gasped, trotting up the cobbled path from the nearest cemetery gate. Others, standing near, took up that cry.
'They'll kill us all, if they think we're of the New Day!'
'What's this 'New Day'?'
'Get home and get your coins before they bring the walls down on your children! Fetch your swords! This is it!'
'The Lords are hunting the New Day! The Lords are after us all!'
'What by all the blazing Hells is the New Day?'
That exasperated outlander's shout was lost in the rising roar of angry Waterdhavians drawing belt-knives and gathering nose-to-nose to shout rumors into dark truths, and dark truths into war-cries.
A Watch horn rang out-then another-and suddenly the crowd knew its foe.
Heads turned, eyes peered, pointing arms shot out-and in an instant the Watch became the hunted.
'This-this is not right!' an old noble growled, reaching for his sword. 'Give me that, man!'
And he plucked a Watch-horn out of the hands of a paling, stammering officer and blew it as hard as he could, in the old, frantic dah-DAH, da-DAH blast that meant Aid! Aid here! All aid here NOW! That call was echoed in the streets around the City of the Dead, and helmed heads turned, peering down from the towers of the city wall along the east side of the cemetery.
'They're coming for us!' a cobbler shouted, waving a stool around his head like a club. 'They'll hunt us down! Fight for your necks! Fight for your freedom! Fight for Waterdeep!'
'For Waterdeep!' the roar went up, as furious as any beast's howl, and all Watchmen within reach died in a few panting moments of furious hacking.
Watch-horns were sounding closer, now-and the high, clear song of a City Guard muster-horn rang out from a wall-tower.
Some folk cowered, but others bawled defiance and fury, and ran at all who stood against them. The old noble's blade bought the whimpering young Watchman a few moments more of fearful life ere they were both hacked down. Then everyone was running, racing amid the tombs as Watchmen and armored Guardsmen with drawn swords burst into the cemetery at every gate. Women and children screamed and wept and ran wildly across the sward, men snatched up cobblestones and funeral urns and turned to fling and overwhelm anyone in uniform- and swords were snatched from failing hands to be swung against the law-keepers.
'The New Day!' someone shouted. 'For the New Day! Down with the Lords!'
'They killed Piergeiron! For Piergeiron!'
A fat man swung a captured Watch blade so hard that it burst apart in shards and sparks around him as it bent the sword it struck and drove a tall Guardsman head-over-booted-heels down a short stone stair into bushes, where shrieking women, clawing and kicking, overwhelmed him.
Guard-horns sang out over the tumult as astonished commanders stared open-mouthed over the sea of angry citizenry.
''Tis a bloody war! A war within our gates!' one snarled, and blew the horncall that would summon the Watchful Order. Surely this fury must be spell-driven…
A few frantic breaths later, he blew his horn again, this time the call for his men to rally around. It was soon accomplished, for anyone who'd dared stray too far from his fellows had already been slain.
'This is madness!' he shouted, to those who were left. 'If we try to stand, we'll be butchering fellow citizens until it's too dark to see! So: Sword-ring, blades out, and walk steadily back to the gate we came in by! We'll form a shield-wall outside the Deadrest!'
With his horn he told Guardsmen elsewhere what they was doing as screaming, curse-spitting citizens crowded close around his men again, striking with bench-slats, lamplighting poles, and anything else long enough to outreach a Guard's blade.
Hardened Watch and Guard officers cursed in amazement as they fought their way back to the gates.
'They've gone mad! Mad!' one snarled, and others nodded grimly, their eyes wide in sweating faces.
'That's it,' a white-haired Guard officer snapped from his saddle, as blood-drenched Guardsmen staggered out through the gate in front of him. 'Form two shield-walls, funneling back that way! Arrest all who leave, and at sunset, close this gate!'
The woman sitting cold-faced on the horse behind his lifted her hand in a swift gesture, and a sudden blue glow swirled around the officer's mouth. Abruptly, the sounds of other men shouting came out of it, and another cold order, from unseen lips: 'Spread the word. I, Marimmon of the Guard, do so order: round up all who flee the City of
