Death of the Dragon - Ed Greenwood [112]
Vangerdahast sat at the edge of the Iron Throne, peering up at Rowen from the shelter of its small canopy. "You are making me reluctant to give you any more magic."
"You know I can't stop it," Rowen said. He seemed a mere silhouette of man-shaped darkness against a torrent of gray rain. "And I am upset. Tanalasta saw me."
"But only for an instant." Vangerdahast had to shout to make himself heard above the storm. "And she didn't know it was you."
"How can you be sure?"
"Had she thought you were standing here beside me, do you think I could have changed the subject?"
The thunder did not rumble quite so loudly. "Good. How did she seem?"
"Surprised." Vangerdahast kept his answer short and tried to sound irritated. He had actually come to like Rowen-perhaps even admire him-and the last thing the wizard wanted was to discuss the telltale shadow on the princess's lip. Queen Filfaeril's lip had grown similarly dark during all three of her pregnancies. "She was expecting to reach you."
"And she did, but how?"
Vangerdahast barely heard the question, for it had just occurred to him he finally had at least a vague time reference. Tanalasta's face had seemed weary and tired, but also much rounder than he remembered, with a certain heaviness below the jawline that bespoke a considerable weight gain. She had to be near the end of her pregnancy. For her to have met an eligible young noble, been properly courted, wed, and now be close to childbirth… it had to have been at least a year-and that only if she had given up the silly notion of marrying for love.
"What's wrong?" asked Rowen. "Why do you look so pale?"
The wizard waved the questions off, pretending to be preoccupied until he could think of a plausible answer, but his preoccupation was no act. His thoughts returned to Tanalasta at once. She had seemed very firm in her decision to marry for love (Vangerdahast recalled something about a vision from Chauntea), so the time had to be closer to two years-at a minimum. She would have needed time to forget Rowen, then there were the mere odds of meeting and falling in love with someone else. The process had taken twenty years the first time.
Then Vangerdahast understood. Had the princess fallen in love with somebody else, she would not have been looking for Rowen several years later. He glared up the ghazneth.
"Did you sleep with the princess?"
Rowen's pearly eyes brightened, then he looked away. "That is hardly any business of yours."
"Of course it is!" Vangerdahast snapped. "Do you not think it the business of the Royal Magician of Cormyr when a low-born, scurrilous dog takes advantage of the crown princess?"
"Takes advantage?" Rowen echoed. The room erupted into a tempest of crackling lightning, compelling the goblin courtiers to withdraw to the corners of the room. "If the princess must tell you everything, I am sure she also told you she was as eager as I was-though I still fail to see how what a wife does with her husband is any business of the royal magician's."
"Husband?" Vangerdahast's head began to feel like it was filled with wool. "I thought you two never left the Stonelands. When did you have time for a wedding? How did you get the king's approval?"
"A marriage is between two people," Rowen said. The lightning ceased. "We had Chauntea's blessing, and that was enough. Tanalasta did not tell you?"
"No." Vangerdahast sank back in his throne and shook his head, trying to work through the ramifications and guess how the news had been received in Cormyr. "Actually, she didn't need to tell me anything. I saw it for myself."
"Saw it? How could you…" Rowen let the question trail off, then his jaw dropped and the throne room grew very still. "I'm going to be a father?"
* * * * *
Even after the dead and wounded had been removed to the kitchen, the Crownsilver dining room looked more like a charnel house than the banquet hall of a great manor. Spattered crescents of