Gwennath reached out as she did every morning to clasp the hand of the heir to the throne. Tanalasta’s grasp was firm this time, yet thankful-not the trembling clinging it had been on earlier days. Such a contact was not actually part of established ritual, but the crown princess need not know that. Gwennath had thought she needed it that first day when a pale and visibly grieving princess had come to the clergy of the goddess and almost pleaded for the consecration of a temporary shrine, so that she might have swift access to divine guidance whenever she felt need of it. High Priest Manarech had agreed without hesitation, with an eye to the future favor of the Dragon Throne, but Gwennath knew, and had a shrewd suspicion that Tanalasta did, too, that the old patriarch had no intention of any shrine to the goddess being temporary.
No matter. The silver disks, symbols of the goddess Tymora, were hung along the walls and the site consecrated. The crown princess of the realm got on her knees to Tymora every morning and evening, and the clergy of fair fortune were well content, even with the establishment of a companion shrine of Tyr, the Lord of Justice, barely a room away. However devout Tanalasta really was, she did seem to find comfort in the prayers, she was obviously seeking guidance, and her visits to the little room with the altar did give her some peaceful time alone every day-time without Vangerdahast glowering at her or young Bleth murmuring in her ear.
Tanalasta cast a sidelong glance at Gwennath, and the priestess gave her a quick smile before she broke their handclasp and rose to begin the supplication. If the goddess granted it, she might come to know this one as a true friend in times to come.
“Lady of Favor,” she began, seeking that wholehearted nearness to Tymora that devotion required, “hear now the-“
There was a sound in the passage behind them, the quick and frantic sound of booted feet running-lots of them. Whatever could it be? Were these soldiers coming? Gwennath’s heart sank. Had the king died?
Her duty was clear. The supplication must be seen through. She raised her arms to the altar and-Tanalasta screamed.
Gwennath spun around in time to see the crown princess fleeing, wild-eyed, past her, trying to get around behind the altar. Trying to escape from the five masked men with glittering blades who were flooding into the chamber. Their eyes were on Tanalasta, and they held murder in them.
Nobles, to judge by their rich clothing, and coming fast. They’d cut down a young priest at the doorway without even slowing, and Gwennath was unarmed.
“Lammanath Tymora!” Gwennath snarled, flinging up her arms. The foremost noble slashed viciously at her, and she ducked low, swayed away from his flashing blade, and then launched herself into him shoulder first. As the breath whooshed out of him and his feet left the floor, she got in one good punch, discovering with satisfaction that his codpiece was only soft gilded cloth. The man made a strangling sound as he and the priestess crashed to the floor together.
By then her spell had filled the room with whirling disks. Her desperate shout had snatched all of the platter- sized holy symbols of Tymora from their hooks on the walls and animated them to her will. She sent them slashing, edge on, against the rushing men. She was rewarded with shouts and startled curses.
“Princess!” she called, rolling away from the man she’d felled. “My mace lies beneath the altar! Defend yourself!”
One of the nobles barked out a contemptuous laugh and leapt past one of the discs, heading toward the priestess. Gwennath glared at him and brought a disk swooping down sharply from the air overhead, She’d only a few moments more before this magic ended…
It was enough for this foe, at least. The disk sliced into his hair and the head beneath, and the man gasped, spat blood, and went to the floor, still wearing a goggle-eyed look of surprise and pain.
Another noble was rushing past toward the altar, and all of the disks were falling now, the power of the spell expired. Gwennath ran to intercept the man. The princess cowered low behind the holy table.
A dagger flashed end over end across the room and thunked into the back of the attacking noble’s head. He staggered, wobbled-and the priestess was upon him, snatching the man’s own dagger from his belt as she moved quickly inside his sword arm. Gwennath drove the hilt of the stolen dagger hard into its owner’s temple and then shoved him against the wall. Turning to see what new peril she might face, Gwennath found herself staring at the bloody point of a blade as it burst through the front of an elegant silk shirt.
Behind the dying noble, as he sagged, was a face she’d seen before: a woman with eyes like two merry flames and hair the hue of honey, who gave Gwennath a merry smile and said, “Catch!” as she tossed the noble’s cosh into the air.
Gwennath gave Emthrara the Harper a smile in return, plucked the falling weapon out of the air, and spun around to see to the safety of the princess.
Tanalasta was dodging around the altar, dragging behind her a mace she obviously found too heavy to use, with a snarling noble in hot pursuit. Even as Gwennath cried out in alarm and raised her hand to hurl the dagger she still held, someone else-a merchant in battered boots, who was waving the longest knife she’d ever seen-vaulted the altar and crashed solidly into the noble. The knife flashed once as they went down together, and there was a short, wet gurgling sound from behind the holy table. She wasn’t surprised to see that only one man rose again-and that it wasn’t the one who wore the mask and fine clothes.
The last of the nobles-the one Gwennath had struck in a sensitive place-had risen behind the priestess, sword up and red rage for the Tymoran in his eyes. Gwennath did not see him, but Emthrara did. The lady Harper shouted a warning, but nothing was going to be able to stop that blade in time…
And then Emthrara saw another figure rise up behind the noble, the altar stool raised in one trembling hand. White to the lips, Crown Princess Tanalasta of Cormyr brought her improvised weapon down with all her strength.
The noble’s sword went one way and his head snapped to the other, blood spraying from the force of the blow. The impact left the noble’s head no longer round, but it managed to make a rattling noise before plunging heavily to the floor with the noble’s dead body.
The princess stared down at what she’d done, gasped, arid promptly emptied her stomach in revulsion.
Her shoulders were still shaking as more armed men, priests of Tyr and Purple Dragons, all waving ready weapons and glaring around at the carnage, burst into the room.
“What happened?” one of the guards demanded and strode forward with one hand out to roughly grasp and spin about the sobbing woman in front of him.
He stopped abruptly when she turned of her own accord and he recognized her face. White it might be, and blue about the lips, but he could not mistake the face of the heir to the throne. The eyes in that famous face were wet with unshed tears.
“We-I was attacked by these… traitors,” the princess, said, her breathing suddenly fast, “and all of these other folk slew them for me.”
“Other folk, High Lady?”
Tanalasta glanced around. The merchant and the woman with the sword had vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, only the priestess of Tymora stood with her. The grim-looking priestess now stepped forward and said firmly, “Her Highness prevailed against these men, blade to blade and eye to eye. Let word of this travel throughout the realm, that justice and right have made the crown princess victorious in battle against five experienced fighting men… who also happened to be foolish nobles. They found the fate that awaits all traitors.”
The eyes of the guards and priests looked at Gwennath and then turned back to the princess.
“What really befell here?” a grizzled Purple Dragon asked bluntly, rising from the blood-smeared flagstones where he’d been examining the man Emthrara had run through.
Tanalasta gave him a wintry glare. “It was just as the holy lady has said,” she snapped, and she turned away to kneel before the altar. “Now, if you gentle sirs will clear away that carrion, my prayers are unfinished…”
“Well said, Your Highness,” Gwennath whispered as she knelt beside the royal supplicant.
Tanalasta surveyed her with a sidelong glance and whispered back fiercely, “When I rise from here, I’m going to expect some answers! Go nowhere until I give you leave.”
Gwennath smiled and bowed her head. “Of course,” she murmured, and she lifted her voice to sing the first call to the Lady of Fortune.
The eyes behind the azure mask almost seemed to glow with interest. “And what else did Bleth propose?”
