Summerstar to bid you fair welcome, so long as you keep the peace of this house. Pray, pass within.'
As he escorted her-and her floating luggage-through the echoing gate tower and into the sundrenched courtyard beyond, Storm saw what she'd been expecting. The wait had been used to assemble a small but stiffly resentful group of splendidly dressed Summerstars. The war wizards there gave her steadily hostile looks. The folk in livery blinked in awe. At the head of these servants stood the seneschal, who gave her a low bow and said, 'Be welcome in Firefall Keep, Lady Silverhand. May I present the Dowager Lady Pheirauze Summerstar?'
A strikingly beautiful lady who'd seen a few more than sixty winters glided forward in an exquisite gown of mauve silk. The puffed sleeves and shoulders made her seem tall and imposing-every bit as menacing as the hulking guards at the gate. She extended her hand for Storm to kneel and kiss, as an inferior.
Storm took it and her forearm and shook heartily, as if the dowager lady were a fellow warrior at a campfire. 'Well met, Pheirauze,' she said cheerfully. 'You've certainly turned out splendidly from the perky little miss I remember!'
Someone in the gathered Summerstars snorted, and Pheirauze whirled around, but could not discover the culprit. She turned back to Storm with menacing slowness, and said carefully, 'I'm glad to hear I've fulfilled your expectations. I'm gratified you came so quickly to share in our bereavement. My grandson would have made you most welcome. You are most timely come; a feast is just being set in the great hall. Will you dine with us, great lady?'
'With a right goodwill,' Storm said heartily, ignoring all the cutting barbs and insults she'd just been handed. She swept around the dowager lady, sliding out her arm as she did so to catch the crook of Pheirauze's arm and jerk her around. They ended up walking together, hip to hip. Storm set a brisk pace across the courtyard. The tall, silver-haired vision in high court dress led the shorter, older lady in mauve, who trotted grimly to keep up. 'What's for dinner?'
Someone among the Summerstars chuckled-or was it a giggle? As the two grand ladies entered the keep, Pheirauze's coldly furious face glared back over her shoulder, seeking a villain. It was becoming a popular occupation in Firefall Keep, it seemed.
FOUR
Candlelight glimmered from end to end of the great hall of Firefall Keep. The air was sharp with the smoke rising from two lines of candle-wheels, which hung above the tables on long, dusty chains. The flickering light danced on dozens of shields, halberds, and suits of armor along the walls, but the loftiest reaches of the hall, above the balconies and minstrels' galleries, were as dark as the night sky. A long table ran down one side of the vast chamber, providing the softly scurrying servants a sideboard to hold steaming covered platters and frosty bottles from the cellars.
The two main tables stood at the midpoint of the hall, well removed from the brightly lit daises at either end. The tables formed a huge V-shape, with chairs along only their outer sides. The two open ends reached toward the long sideboard, outlining an area where dancers might dance, jugglers juggle, players act, and minstrels play.
There was no one in that open space tonight. It didn't take Storm long to figure out why: she was this night's entertainment. Extra candles had been set in man-high candelabra behind her seat, halfway down one wing of one table; the only other well-lit spot was at the meeting of the two wings, where the two dowager ladies of the Summerstars, mother and daughter, sat facing each other.
The nobles who called Firefall Keep home were all gathered here this night, sitting along both wings of the high table. One wing began with the Dowager Lady Zarova, mother to Athlan, known as a woman of serene silence in court gossip-and no doubt cowed into her present timid state by the older dowager lady, Pheirauze. Beside Zarova sat her daughter, now heir of the house, and from her the seats of the lesser Summerstar kindred ran out to where the seneschal sat, with Storm on his right, and only a few ladies-in-waiting and scribes beyond her.
Storm looked again at Shayna. The young Lady Summerstar was truly as beautiful as folk in Cormyr said: slim, graceful, and by the looks of things a trifle shy-not overproud. Waves of glossy chestnut hair tumbled over delicate shoulders. Her skin was almost white, her eyes large and liquid green. A stunning beauty indeed.
As she gazed at the new Summerstar heiress, Storm felt the weight of cold, hostile eyes upon her. She looked in their direction. Across from Zarova sat Pheirauze. She was flanked by a slimly handsome young nobleman, who sat shoulder to shoulder with a lionlike, bearded rogue of a man of about the same age as the dowager lady. His eyes, as they met hers, were both hot with invitation … and cold with dislike.
Storm gave him a slight smile and glanced farther down that table. Beside the sneering sophisticate sat a pair of fearsome old battle-axes. In the candlelight, their jewels glittered like falls of frozen water. The old ladies fixed Storm with identical toadlike glares of hauteur and hatred. The bard gave them both broad, pleasant smiles, and felt a touch of inner amusement as they stiffened in mortification. These two must be the maiden aunts. Beyond them, a handful of kindred gave way to a solid row of war wizards. They faced Storm watchfully-no doubt ready to hurl spells at the well-lit target if she did anything threatening. Storm smiled inwardly. It was going to be one of those evenfeasts.
'Have you. . dined in polite society often, Lady Bard?' asked Uncle Erlandar, curly bearded and suave. His large emerald earrings flashed as they dangled over his steaming soup. His tone made the question a biting insult.
'Many a time, Lord Erlandar' she replied sweetly, 'from the table of divine Mystra herself to the breakfast- table of His Majesty, King Azoun. Sometimes, I've even enjoyed myself.' She sipped at her peppery soup and thought it was a pity some enthusiast had ruined the subtle flavors of mingled fowl and turtle with the burning buzz of an overly lavish poison. Someone was going to be disappointed when she didn't fall on her face into the soup… and she'd lay money it was someone sitting at this table right now.
'I'm surprised,' Erlandar said, his voice dripping false honey, 'that a minstrel from such a backwater as Shadowdale has had so many opportunities to pluck strings in exalted surroundings … but of course, one must never cast aspersions on the veracity of a lady's claims-no matter how lowborn the lady.'
'She is from the Dales, dear,' Dowager Lady Pheirauze said with bright concern. 'Folk of such. . ah, unfortunate backgrounds may not realize the importance we place on honesty here in Cormyr.'
Storm chuckled as deeply and heartily as any man, and told her goblet, 'Yes-Azoun has spoken to me on several occasions of how much he values the all-too-rare commodity of loyalty and honesty among his nobles.' She lifted her eyes to regard the diners across from her, and saw glittering amusement in the eyes of several carefully stone-faced war wizards. Cold glares awaited to the left, so she looked instead down her own table. The Lady Shayna was looking down at her plate as she ate, her face crimson … and it was not Storm's replies that were embarrassing her.
Erlandar thought he'd espied an opening in Storm's observation, however, and was roaring, 'Do you dare insult the collective honor of the entire nobility of Cormyr, Lady-ah, whatever your name is? Do you actually have the gall to hold yourself in judgment of all the Forest Kingdom?' His words were echoed by hisses of contempt from the two maiden aunts, Margort and Nalanna Summerstar. 'By the gods, you lowborn women push us far, sheltered in your immunity from challenges of honor by the sword!'
Storm laughed easily. 'Do I understand you correctly, Erlandar Summerstar? Are you. . challenging me?'
'Bah!' he snarled, flicking his fingers in her direction. 'I don't make war on women!'
'Ah,' Storm informed her goblet, 'but I've heard from many lasses in Suzail that you do-and very energetically, at that!'
Down the row of war wizards, someone sputtered as mirth overmastered him. The Dowager Lady Pheirauze immediately leaned forward to try to see who it was, and said sharply, 'Oh, Erlandar, don't be tiresome. She only makes you seem ridiculous; waste no more words on coarse country wenches.'
A momentary silence followed these words. Another male voice drawled into it. 'There is something I'd like to know, Lady Silverhand-and I mean no impertinence.'
The speaker was the young and handsome Summerstar male who sat between Pheirauze and Erlandar. This would have to be Thalance, the cousin of Shayna … and, of course, to the dead Athlan.
