thirst-slaking the fine lords and their maids and jacks and bullyblades, but wondering how soon this windfall would end. And how bloodily.
Right now, Rune was far too yawningly bone-weary to think any more about it. Not that she hadn’t thought and thought far too much already.
Her feet hurt the most, as usual.
She rubbed them thoughtfully, curled up on her chair, then rolled out of it to find her clothes. It was astonishing how quickly her own life had settled back into its usual routines. How she’d lived before a certain Lord Delcastle had started taking a very personal interest in her.
Not to mention a crazed old man named Elminster and a sinister thief by the name of Talane.
Wincing at that latter name and wondering if she should go home this night, after all, Amarune ran her fingers through her hair to banish the worst of the tangles, yawned farewell to her mirror, blew out the little lantern, and made her way to the door, surefooted in the total darkness.
It seemed a very long time since she’d been the Silent Shadow, peril of the night. Some time in the last few days-had they really only been that few? — she’d drifted into being the ornament of a dashing young noble. A spirited lass, but only a lass, coin-poor and bearing a family name that mattered to no one…
The guard that Tress had hired to watch over the back door of the club and the street outside, to make sure no one was lurking to endanger her dancers, gave Rune a smile and a nod.
“Safe as it gets,” that meant. Stifling another yawn, Rune smiled back, waved farewell, and slipped out through the door.
The street was not empty. A gleaming white coach stood where she would have blundered right into it if she’d come out with her head down, its horses pawing contentedly as they munched at their feedbags. A familiar face grinned at her out of its nearest window.
“Lord Arclath Delcastle,” she greeted him with a tired grin. “I hope you’re not expecting anything from me. Like staying awake, for instance.”
Arclath swung the door open and sprang out of the coach to assist her into it with a courtly flourish.
“Nothing of the sort, I assure you. Ravaging your snoring body will bring me all the delight I need at the moment-or to be more serious, Rune, why not spend a night under my roof in Delcastle Manor? Alone, in a guest bedchamber, with the servants knowing you need to sleep just as long as your snoring takes you, and a splendid repast waiting when you do rise? Mother won’t mind, being as she suggested it. What do you say?”
“I say, ‘Yes, please, and thank you very much, gallant lord, and wake me when we get there,’ ” Amarune replied happily, settling herself into the cushioned back seat of the coach.
A breath later, they were rumbling through the streets, and she was nestled against Arclath, talking uncontrollably. “Spilling all your secrets,” as Tress would put it.
“I feel utterly mind-mazed, to tell truth,” she gabbled. “Settling back into my old ways, as if none of it, the beholder and being in chains in the palace and-and everything — was real. Then when I’m alone, it rushes back to me, the bad things, I mean. I’m still afraid Talane will appear when I’m least ready for her, and really afraid whenever I return to my rooms that a deadly trap will be waiting for me-or a brutally welcoming thick-neck bullyblade. Then, when I’m out in the sunlit streets again, it’s all different, with El and Storm just gone, and all the exciting and important doings they brought with them, too!”
Arclath was nodding, so she rushed on.
“I–I don’t feel as if I’d ever dare approach the palace, now, by myself and on my own behalf… and I still don’t feel as if I belong to the grand, expensive world of you nobles-or ever will.”
Arclath smiled. “Nobles aren’t much different from commoners,” he told her quietly. “We’re just more spoiled and pompous and better fed-and have more coins to waste, and better clothes to waste them in, that’s all.”
“That’s all,” she echoed in amusement.
Yet, his words held truth, for she and Arclath’s mother were cautiously becoming friends, and few could match Marantine Delcastle for cold, lofty arrogance when she cared to play the noble matriarch to the hilt.
This strange calm that had settled over Suzail had come after a rather large handful of nobles had been wounded in duels and skirmishes, causing some of the highborn to bolt out of the city for the comparative security of their various country seats.
Yet, intrigues were still going on, with nobles hiring sellswords as fast as they could-some of them in more numbers than any impartial observer could possibly deem necessary for bodyguard purposes, or for that matter were allowed under the laws of the land-but it was all happening out of sight, behind closed doors or high mansion or estate walls.
The war wizards were back in control, aggressively leading highly visible Dragon patrols to keep order in the city, clear out undesirables, and maintain an alert garrison against the oft-rumored imminent invasion. All independent mages in Suzail were under close watch, and it seemed as if most commoners-after an initial rush to secure transportation for swift flight, and ready coins for spending in exile-were holding their breaths and just waiting for whatever befell next.
“Which,” Arclath gloomily observed, as the coach turned a corner, “is usually some nastiness from Sembia, or something particularly cruel, stupid, and high-handed from one of the senior Houses. My mother would hotly dispute that, but it’s true. Everyone who bothers to think on such things can see it.” He sighed. “So, who will be the next stone-headed idiot to endanger the kingdom, I wonder?”
“Arclath Delcastle!” someone yelled, as if on cue-and men came rushing up to the slowing coach, out of the night.
Arclath snatched out his sword, and Rune, her heart suddenly pounding, raised one of her knives beside her ear, ready for throwing.
Yet, the man who stepped up onto the coach to rap on the closed window wore a bright smile, and Arclath knew him.
“Well met, lord!” were his first words, as Arclath thrust the sliding window down. “I-we-serve Lord Elbert Oldbridle, who bids us invite you to evening-feast on the morrow, at the home of Lord Arkanon Nalander.”
“Is this an open invitation, Clarn?” Arlcath asked mildly.
“No,” was the reply.
“Don’t bother to bring your doxy,” Clarn added coldly, glancing at Amarune.
Arclath nodded, the Oldbridle bullyblade sprang down off the step, and the coach started to move again.
“What was that about?” Amarune asked.
“An invitation to join Lord Nalander’s scheme to put someone or other-possibly himself or his son Arkeld, or possibly someone chosen by his Sembian backers-on the Dragon Throne, after young fools like me risk our necks exterminating the House of Obarskyr,” Arclath replied grimly. “I’m beginning to think fleeing deep into the forest with Storm and Elminster, and staying there a good long time, is a very good idea.”
“What will happen if you don’t attend?” Amarune asked softly.
“They’ll consider me a foe and treat me accordingly,” Arclath replied calmly. “See? Not much different from commoners, after all.”
Amarune shook her head and murmured, “You’ve no idea what common folk are really like, do you?”
Arclath frowned. “Lady,” he said sternly, “I have tried hard to stride through life with my eyes open, seeing past the masks most adopt to greet the wider world, and marking the details of many lives and trades and customs, the better to-”
“Oh, I did not say you have not tried to look beyond the lives and affairs of nobles, my lord,” Amarune told him earnestly. “It is one of the reasons why… why I love you. I–I-”
She threw her arms around him, drew him down into an embrace, and hissed, “What’re you going to do? If not this cabal, which one?”
“None of them,” Arclath snapped. “We have our own cabal-you, me, the Lady Storm, Mirt, and your great- grandfather. Plus the ghost of the Princess Alusair, perhaps, when we venture into the palace.”
“So, do we turn this coach and head for the inn where Lord Helderstone has taken rooms?”
“In the morning,” Arclath told her, his smile surfacing. “Tonight, Lady Rune, you are mine.”
“There’s been no sign of young Lord Stormserpent or his two flaming slayers for days now,” Elminster murmured. “I wonder who got to him?”
