Cormyr_ a novel - Ed Greenwood [194]
So warned, the couple hurried into the house. The woman shrieked and then sobbed, and the man made comforting noises.
"I can't leave you alone for a moment, can I?" Vangerdahast asked softly.
"How was I to know?" the young prince protested.
"You weren't to know," the wizard said severely, "but you should always be cautious."
The pair remained at the old Goldfeather Manor for the remainder of the day. Azoun removed the rest of the shattered parlor door and used the boards from it and some additional lumber to patch up the front window. When they reached Eveningstar, he'd send a carpenter for the door and a glass glazer for the window, compliments of the crown, to make full repairs. Vangerdahast helped the old woman clean away the carnage in the parlor room and dress the chickens and goats. One of the goats made an excellent dinner at the close of the day, and the old woman proved to be an excellent cook.
The weretiger did not return.
They talked late into the evening, the old man telling tales of when he was a lad, when the kingdom was torn apart in the War of Red and Purple. When he started to nod off, the old woman told her guests where beds had been made ready for them, shook her husband awake, and the couple retreated to their own room.
Vangerdahast and Azoun sat by the last dying flames of the hearth fire. Neither moved to put more wood on the waning blaze.
"You're right, you know," said Azoun at last.
"Right about what?" said the wizard, his eyes red and tired beneath half-closed lids.
"No one is who he seems," said the young prince, stretching, "and while I should not be paranoid about it, I should be aware-and therefore wary."
"A lesson learned," said the wizard. "The day is not a total loss."
Azoun rose from the hearthside and went to the door, waving his arm to loosen a bruised and tired shoulder. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "It's amazing that our morning discussion had such an immediate reinforcement. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you planned all this, just to drive home a lesson."
The young king-to-be shook his head, half smiled, and was gone, leaving the stout wizard sitting beside the last cooling coals in the hearth, alone with his thoughts.
"Then there's hope for you yet, boy," Vangerdahast said softly to the embers as he rose stiffly to seek his own bed. "There's hope for you yet."
Chapter 31: Loyalties
Year of the Gauntlet
(1369 DR)
"Our shy crown princess certainly showed some fire," Rhauligan remarked, raising his glass to his companion in the Snout Room. "I guess we'll just have to get a stool into her hand more often."
"As she governs Cormyr, you mean?" Emthrara responded with a smile, clinking her glass gently against his.
Rhauligan nodded. "I'm getting just a trifle too old for such frantic scramblings as this morning's little fray."
"You're getting just a trifle too fat, you mean," Emthrara replied, shaking her head to tell an approaching patron that she wasn't interested in dancing just now. The man held up three golden lions hopefully, but she continued to shake her head. He raised his eyebrows and pressed on through the crowded Roving Dragon in search of a lady who'd say yes. Rhauligan watched, the patron's trip was not a long one.
"At least the threat to the throne is ended," he said, licking his lips and gazing into his glass appreciatively.
"This threat to the throne is ended," the Harper corrected him. "There'll be others, knowing our valiant nobles."
In a place much darker and quieter than the Roving Dragon, where two hallways met in a little-used back corner of the sprawling royal court, a young, cleft-chinned nobleman stood talking to nothing, keeping his voice low.
"I'll ask you the same thing I asked Vangerdahast and Gaspar Cormaeril," Immaril Emmarask, cousin to the now-deceased Ensrin, said calmly. "What's in it for me?"
"Loyalty to Cormyr?" the woman's voice came back to him. "A bright future for the realm?"
Immaril shrugged. "Grand goals, bandied about all too much by folk seeking justification for small and dirty things they