Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [31]
Bloodbright seemed to have little taste for tarrying where bullying young rivals might try to snatch the mysterious lovely on his arm away from him; he whirled Amarune hastily away. Almost to the far end of the room, where the high windows of Dragontriumph Hall afforded a view of many lighted windows across the courtyard. Courtiers not exalted—or idle—enough to be invited to the Open Feast were hard at work behind those windows, in the huge, curving string of interconnected buildings known as the royal court, which shielded the royal palace on two sides from all the bustle and unwashed rest of Suzail.
Amarune had a brief glimpse of tall, dark portraits mounted on the pillars between those windows. Each was startlingly realistic and life-size. There was a masked princess wearing one crown and holding another that dripped blood, and there was a king in blood-drenched armor, rising up in his saddle at the heart of a gory battlefield to hold a gleaming chalice aloft in laughing triumph.
Stirring scenes that caught the eye and imagination. Obarskyrs, no doubt, but which ones, and why had they been painted thus?
She knew she dared not ask the man whose hip she still rode, who was starting to parade her down the other side of the long table.
Where the chatter sounded even more interesting.
“Ho, Marlin! I know you were hard at work on something to do with our shared hobby! Anything you can discuss, yet?”
“Heh, no, not yet, Mellast. Not yet. It’ll be worth the wait though, believe you me.”
“… ah, but that wouldn’t be smugglers at all! That’d be our daring Silent Shadow!”
“Silent Shadow? Sounds like something fat old noblewomen titter over and vie to be ravished by!”
Amarune managed not to stiffen. Well, we all have our secrets …
“Perhaps so, perhaps so. D’you mean to say you’ve not heard of him? Or her, for all I know!”
“Milvarune is so backward, my dear Jhalikoe. We stagger along from season to season hearing almost nothing of fair Cormyr except the exploits of Krimsal—quite the villain, that one. Almost like our nobles out east!”
“Oh, he’s no worse than a lot of our other Cormyrean lords, believe you me; he’s just more open about what he’s up to—most of the time. Right now, he’s in hiding, and no wonder, considering some of the murders and mutilations he managed this last winter.”
“Ah.” The envoy from Milvarune was obviously newly arrived in Cormyr. He thanked a server with a silent smile and nod for the tallglass that had just been steered into his hand. “Yet I take it this Shadow is more a thief than a slayer? More like your Skult and Vandarl?”
“Ah, so your staff has told you some useful things; good, good. Yet the Silent Shadow’s not like Skult or Vandarl at all. That is to say, they all steal, yes, but ‘Skull and Van’ are thieves for hire, and good ones. You’d best beware of them; our wealthy nobles can’t use either to rob fellow nobles, because these two miscreants are wise enough to refuse such tasks—but can freely use them to rob or harass non-noble creditors or those who get above themselves and presume to challenge nobles when it comes to competing in trade matters. The Shadow, now, is different. A loner, a thief of great daring, who works by night, purloining coins and jewelry from seemingly inaccessible nobles’ bedchambers and locked tower-top rooms.”
“Ah, I see! So fat old noblewomen would titter and coo over him!”
“Indeed! Oh, you’re going to fit in here in Suzail just fine!”
Abruptly firm fingers dug like daggers into Amarune’s elbow and steered her away. Lord Bloodbright, it seemed, knew just how long tarrying could continue before it became obvious eavesdropping.
They threaded their ways through gusts of laughter and around a drunken courtier noisily imitating an effeminate visiting noble of Sembia in a manner that would have earned him a death-challenge had any Sembians been within earshot, to a cluster of men speaking in low tones, almost face to face. One was the darkly handsome