Azure bonds - Kate Novak [37]
"Lady Alias?" a familiar voice addressed her. "I trust you're having a fine time?"
Alias turned and blinked twice to accustom her eyes to the shadowed side of the tent. Dimswart stood, his comrade-in-ale, the priest Winefiddle, right behind. Each held a foaming mug of beer.
"Yes, yes I am," Alias replied politely, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. "I was just trying to cross the room, but it's like wading through soft sand." She could not meet the eyes of the cleric. In addition to trying to kill him, she had also cheated his church of his fee.
But Winefiddle smiled absently at her, and the sage nodded in blank agreement. Their faces were both more flushed than the heat in the tent warranted, and they swayed from side to side, bumping into each other.
Giving her elbow a little fatherly squeeze, Dimswart bellowed over the noise, "We'll talk about your little problem just as soon as Leona and I get the children off. That way I'll get out of the clean-up." He laughed, and some of the ale sloshed from his mug. "Have you eaten? Had a mug?"
Alias shook her head, and Winefiddle pressed his flagon into her hands. "Hardly touched," he slurred.
Alias smiled nervously and, not wishing to give the curate any further cause for offense, took a swig. The ale was as vile as The Hidden Lady's.
"No more, thanks," Alias said, passing the mug back to Winefiddle. "I think I'd better keep keep my wits about me."
The curate shrugged and took a long, hearty draught. Alias excused herself and plunged back into the crowd in the direction she'd last seen Akabar's head. She spotted Olive Ruskettle seated on a small bench in front of the wedding table, leaning low over her yarting as she tuned it so she could hear the strings over the noise of the crowd.
Alias's attention was drawn away to Akabar, who was watching something with great amusement. Empty crystal cups rose and fell above the heads of the crowd in an ever increasing number. How odd. I would have thought jugglers too common for Lady Leona, Alias puzzled.
"Higher taxes will be the death of me," complained a voice in the milling crowd.
"A lovely couple," an elderly woman declared. "I wonder if he's told her about his second cousin. The one who went quite mad and became an adventurer, you remember?"
"Oh, go ahead, Giogi," wheedled the slurred female voice Alias recognized from earlier. "Just once. He really does sound just like King Azoun."
Finally, Alias squeezed between the multi-hued bodies and stood beside Akabar. Upon spying the juggler though, she growled with annoyance. Dragonbait lay on the ground dressed in fool's motley, tossing and catching seven pieces of Lady Leona's crystal with all four feet and his tail. Akabar was just tossing an eighth cup into the fray.
The clear hemisphere landed in the lizard's right front claw and scribed a complicated journey behind its mates from right front to left rear to right rear to left front to tail, and finally bounced up in a high arc by the tail to land again in the right front claw. Already an admiring crowd had gathered, allowing the lizard more open space in the mob than anyone else had received.
"What's he doing here?" Alias hissed to Akabar.
"It's called juggling. Don't you have that in the north?" The mage grinned as he added a cup to the bobbing glassware.
"I can see that," Alias replied, beginning to lose her patience. "Why?"
Akabar shrugged. "Some northern women assumed he was a pet and began tossing him food. In their excitement, they began bombarding him, actually. Rather than appear impolite he began juggling what he couldn't eat. I thought it would be easier and cleaner to toss cups than fruit salad."
"But he's not supposed to be here," Alias insisted through clenched teeth. "I told him to stay in my room."
Suddenly, Lady Leona broke through the crowd, and the party-goers went deathly quiet. The noisiest members of the group turned away hastily to engage themselves in the more civilized pastime of conversation.
The mother of the bride gave a polite but firm