Cormyr_ a novel - Ed Greenwood [99]
Rhauligan grinned at her in answer and opened his mouth wide. A last eel quivered and wriggled on his tongue, seeking freedom.
Braundlae shuddered despite herself and flung out a pointing hand. "Get you gone!" she ordered. "Up into the Dragon-with a fresh tankard for that nice young man!"
* * * * *
The Roving Dragon, as Rhauligan had informed Dauneth earlier, was currently the most popular bun-and-ale for working Suzailans to stop in at, once a day or so. For years, it had seemed there was no room left on the Promenade for a relaxed, reasonably priced establishment that could serve food quickly, where people could sit at tables and talk-gossip, business, court politics, or whatever.
Caladarea Ithbeck had changed all that. Newly arrived from Chessenta a season ago, she saw the lack of the sort of place she liked to eat at, its windows overlooking somewhere busy and important, and saw something much brighter: If one rented out the upper floor apartments of a row of shops, and then joined them into one long series of private little rooms by knocking doorways through the connecting walls, one suddenly had a large new dining hall right on the Promenade. Add a few very exclusive guest apartments for visiting nobles or rich merchants, make peace with a tavern or two by letting them take the lion's share of the low-bottle drinking trade and in return getting their stairs to serve as entrances, make sure that the food was simple and good-and the Roving Dragon was a sure success. It was seldom, even in the slow midmorning and waning noon hour periods, that the rooms with the best views had fewer than a dozen patrons lazily sipping at cider and making meat tarts or soup last as long as they could.
There were a dozen in the Snout Room-the sunny chamber at the east end of the Dragon, with its view of the royal gardens past the end of the sprawling court buildings-right now.
Two merchants were chuckling together at one table, a veritable forest of tankards rising from around their elbows. Another, leaner merchant sat with a smoothly amorous lady who was probably getting paid for her caresses. A table of six priests of Tymora were leaning noses together, speaking in low and excited tones-no doubt about how deliciously risky, and therefore favored by the Goddess of Luck, the present time was in Cormyr, with the king's life hanging by a magical (none doubted) thread. A mercenary captain sat silently at a small corner table, his booted feet occupying its only other chair, obviously waiting for someone. His breast badge was a wolf leaping into view between two trees.
And there was Dauneth Marliir. He'd been staring at the mercenary's badge from time to time, and at other times gazing at the head of the stair that led down to Braundlae's Best, and devoting the rest of his time to the huge tankard, which seemed all but empty now. The ale had a rough-edged, smoky taste, but it was good. He licked his lips in consideration. The best thing about this day so far, in fact. For all his patience, he had not yet had a chance to see the dying Azoun in the flesh, his progress in the long lines halted at the next-to-last chamber.
He could still remember the only time he'd seen the king, as bright and as clear as if it had happened only yesterday and not over a dozen summers ago when he took Arabel from Gondegal's forces. A bearded, laughing man, standing tall in his saddle in a leather forester's jerkin with his hands spread wide to acknowledge the cheers of his people. Power and grace and surging vitality, the sense that all the might of Cormyr was flowing into that man as he rode past, every inch the rightful and natural king of the Forest Kingdom.
And a young, excited Dauneth had roared out Azoun's name and waved his hands and wept along with all the rest, there in the streets of Arabel, and felt at one with men he'd never met in his life before. Old warriors who walked slowly and proudly toward the sunset of that day as if they wanted it never to come, while they told and retold,