Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [136]
“I see,” Amarune said, managing to keep her sigh quiet. “Do you know where he is?”
“Out dining. I was given to understand. Darcleir’s Haven is a likelihood, but with so many friends, old and otherwise, newly arrived in Suzail, he might very well end up elsewhere. In the meantime, I regret I cannot admit guests to wait for him.”
“Of course,” she replied, turning away.
Where to, she was not quite sure. Nowhere at all might be safe for her, and among all these tall, formidable walls and the frequent Watch patrols, she could hardly linger on these streets of mansions and—
Lost in her thoughts, she almost walked right into a pair of gleaming boots and the dark-clad man who was wearing them, standing right in front of her in the night.
She flung herself back, clapping hand to knife—and saw that it was Arclath Delcastle, smiling a rather tired smile at her. He was just arriving home from the Haven, having grown heartily tired of the company of overpainted, oh-so-pretty venomous vipers of young and predatory noble ladies, with their honeyed threats and condescensions.
Their eyes met, and one good look at her frightened, imploring eyes told him something. Breaking into a broad grin, he swept one arm around Amarune with a loud and delighted, “Lady Amarune! We must talk! Your castle or mine?”
“Y-yours,” she managed to whisper. “If it’s … convenient.”
“In your company, all things are convenient,” he replied heartily. “Open up, Lorold!”
The gates were already parting, guards coming to attention. Arclath gave them both bright smiles and nods, waved to the porter, and swept his cloaked guest past them all into the moonlit gardens beyond.
“I’m honored that you came to visit us so promptly! The family will be so pleased!”
He took her arm, firmly guiding her up a gentle slope of grass wet with heavy dew to a path lined with tall plantings of uruth and bedaelia. “To our right, the Delcastle bridal bower! Ahead of us, the summerhouse, and to our left, looking down across the main carriageway to the arbor, we can see in the distance the five fishponds my great-grandsire was so proud of. The Delcastle stables are justly famed for their—”
By then they were well along the floral path, and he stopped in midsentence, dropped his voice to a murmur, and asked, “Do you need shelter? A meal? A place to talk?”
“All of those, I suppose,” Amarune replied, hesitantly. “To talk, mostly.”
“Here, or inside, where the dragon that is my mother snorts fire and growls, devouring a steady procession of young and perfumed men entering her bedchamber?”
Amarune sighed. “Do you have a room you can call your own, with a door that locks?”
Arclath eyed her gravely. “I do. Have you a reputation left to maintain?”
Amarune snorted. “As a barepelt club dancer? I’ll risk it.”
“But what of my reputation?” he asked lightly.
“I can probably manage to moan and gasp and sob your name loudly from time to time, and thereby salvage it,” she told him dryly.
Arclath rolled his eyes then grinned like an eager lad, his eyes dancing. “Then come!”
“Can we at least have drinks first?” she teased. “Isn’t that the courtly way?”
“We can,” he promised. “Yet never make the mistake again of thinking nobles are courtly away from court. As mistakes go, that can be one of the fatal ones.”
Well, at least he was still good at one thing.
Not that breaking into the royal palace of Suzail with swift ease was apt to advance him far in any new career he’d prefer to pursue.
Panderer? Nay …
Elminster gave the dark and empty secret passage he was traversing his best wry grin as he hastened along it. Then he winced. Aye, he had a blister rising on his left heel. He was getting too old for waltzing young lasses home and then rushing back across too much of Suzail to seek his own hidehold, before—
Hoy, there! He stiffened, slowed, and then advanced more cautiously. The murmur of voices ahead was many-throated and excited; something had befallen.
The clack was coming through some spyholes from a room beside