Elminster Must Die

guests to wait for him.”

“Of course,” she replied, turning away.

Where to, she was not quite sure. Nowhere at all might be safe for her, and among all these tall, formidable walls and the frequent Watch patrols, she could hardly linger on these streets of mansions and-

Lost in her thoughts, she almost walked right into a pair of gleaming boots and the dark-clad man who was wearing them, standing right in front of her in the night.

She flung herself back, clapping hand to knife-and saw that it was Arclath Delcastle, smiling a rather tired smile at her. He was just arriving home from the Haven, having grown heartily tired of the company of overpainted, oh-so-pretty venomous vipers of young and predatory noble ladies, with their honeyed threats and condescensions.

Their eyes met, and one good look at her frightened, imploring eyes told him something. Breaking into a broad grin, he swept one arm around Amarune with a loud and delighted, “Lady Amarune! We must talk! Your castle or mine?”

“Y-yours,” she managed to whisper. “If it’s … convenient.”

“In your company, all things are convenient,” he replied heartily. “Open up, Lorold!”

The gates were already parting, guards coming to attention. Arclath gave them both bright smiles and nods, waved to the porter, and swept his cloaked guest past them all into the moonlit gardens beyond.

“I’m honored that you came to visit us so promptly! The family will be so pleased!”

He took her arm, firmly guiding her up a gentle slope of grass wet with heavy dew to a path lined with tall plantings of uruth and bedaelia. “To our right, the Delcastle bridal bower! Ahead of us, the summerhouse, and to our left, looking down across the main carriageway to the arbor, we can see in the distance the five fishponds my great-grandsire was so proud of. The Delcastle stables are justly famed for their-”

By then they were well along the floral path, and he stopped in midsentence, dropped his voice to a murmur, and asked, “Do you need shelter? A meal? A place to talk?”

“All of those, I suppose,” Amarune replied, hesitantly. “To talk, mostly.”

“Here, or inside, where the dragon that is my mother snorts fire and growls, devouring a steady procession of young and perfumed men entering her bedchamber?”

Amarune sighed. “Do you have a room you can call your own, with a door that locks?”

Arclath eyed her gravely. “I do. Have you a reputation left to maintain?”

Amarune snorted. “As a barepelt club dancer? I’ll risk it.”

“But what of my reputation?” he asked lightly.

“I can probably manage to moan and gasp and sob your name loudly from time to time, and thereby salvage it,” she told him dryly.

Arclath rolled his eyes then grinned like an eager lad, his eyes dancing. “Then come!”

“Can we at least have drinks first?” she teased. “Isn’t that the courtly way?”

“We can,” he promised. “Yet never make the mistake again of thinking nobles are courtly away from court. As mistakes go, that can be one of the fatal ones.”

Well, at least he was still good at one thing.

Not that breaking into the royal palace of Suzail with swift ease was apt to advance him far in any new career he’d prefer to pursue.

Panderer? Nay …

Elminster gave the dark and empty secret passage he was traversing his best wry grin as he hastened along it. Then he winced. Aye, he had a blister rising on his left heel. He was getting too old for waltzing young lasses home and then rushing back across too much of Suzail to seek his own hidehold, before-

Hoy, there! He stiffened, slowed, and then advanced more cautiously. The murmur of voices ahead was many-throated and excited; something had befallen.

The clack was coming through some spyholes from a room beside the passage and had the same air of alert bustle that befalls a castle before a siege; something he’d heard a time or twelvescore and remembered all too well.

Ah, that voice was Mallowfaer, the Master of Revels, in full pompous bluster.

Elminster rolled his eyes and glided to a cautious halt by the spyholes, taking care to keep well back from them as he peered through.

The robing-room on the other side of the wall was crowded with courtiers, and war wizards, too; facing El but half-hidden behind the shoulder of Understeward Corleth Fentable was a rather bruised-looking Rorskryn Mreldrake. The spyholes were situated behind and just above the left shoulder of Khaladan Mallowfaer, who evidently wanted to impress everyone with his authority and exacting attention to detail, but also sounded determined to demonstrate just how pompous and nasty he could be, in the process.

The burdens of his song were intertwined harmonies of exasperation at unfolding chaos, glee that the problem could not-by any stretch of verbiage he would allow-be laid at his door, and that he was in charge of formal protocols at the moment and could therefore decree with nigh royal authority. It seemed the palace had become aware that Ganrahast and Vainrence both seemed to be missing, with our wizards of war very alarmed about it and rushing about searching here, there, and everywhere without wanting to admit that anything at all was amiss-with the council only days away! What to do? What to do?

At that moment, with a sputtering roar, it became clear that Understeward Fentable’s superior, the bullying, blustering, and overblown Palace Steward Rorstil Hallowdant-who was both lazy and a drunkard and therefore spent much of his time snoring somewhere, leaving things to the highly efficient and widely liked understeward, much to the relief of most courtiers-had heard quite enough of someone else being haughty and giving orders right and left.

“The Master of Revels,” he said in a voice that had a finger-lopping-sharp edge to it, “seems to forget that everyone in this chamber right now is a dedicated, skilled professional, from the clerk of the shield here beside me to the under-clerks of protocol yonder, all four of them. It is our common business to know the location and deeds of each royal personage, both before and throughout the council, from the smallest appointment to the grandest feast, and from our beloved King Foril to Lord Royal Erzoured and the Countess of Dhedluk. The Master of Revels needs only to coordinate, and not to command.”

“Of course,” Mallowfaer responded in a voice that had an edge all its own, “but the Crown Prin-”

“Crown Prince Irvel confers with me often. I last spoke with him- and with Princess Ospra, Prince Baerovus, and Princess Raedra-just before departing the Sunstatues Chamber to come here. All of them are confident the customary support of the entire palace will make this council a success, however tense matters become. I should add that even one not born to high station, the Lady Solatha Boldtree, shares this confidence and has said as much. To me.”

“Nevertheless-”

“Nevertheless,” the palace steward said crushingly, “we deal with functions and courtesies large and small here in this great seat of rulership, day in and day out, and shall continue to do so without any need for the Master of Revels to try to alter or gainsay the usual precedence or procedures. I fully expect each and every one of you to-”

Elminster shook his head and strolled on down the secret passage, Hallowdant’s coldly cutting words fading behind him. He found himself both amused-he could practically complete the palace steward’s speech by heart, without any need to actually hear the rest of it-and heartened. Murmurs of agreement had been backing Hallowdant in a sort of chorus.

The court was bent on their duties.

Ganrahast or no Ganrahast, things would go on. Haughty and fussy and backbiting though they were, the courtiers of Cormyr would deal with things.

King rise or king fall, regicide or nobles poisoning each other with abandon or chasing each other down the halls with gore-dripping battle-axes, the palace servants would endure. And the Forest Kingdom with them, for they were the kingdom. They and the carters and crofters, foresters and horsebreeders,