Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [47]
Seated beside Arclath Argustagus Delcastle—in his beribboned clothing, gilded wig, curl-toed boots, and all—his two court friends looked like two of his drab, timid servants. Who suddenly, despite their wide-eyed stares at the stage, were yawning. Tired little servants of the Crown, the both of them.
“So,” Arclath began, when Tress had poured each man his mumbled choice from the decanters and smilingly had withdrawn, “tell me about this Council of Dragons from the inside, as it were. Will there be wine? Dancing? And are we all going to have to put on fetching little dragon suits like the one Tress pours herself into?”
“Where’s he heading now?” Storm murmured, as the last of Stormserpent’s men vanished around that distant corner. “Not the Dragonskull, after all.”
The ghostly princess lifted shapely shoulders in a shrug. “He certainly knows where he’s going. Which is more than I do. Elminster?”
“Why do folk always think I know everything? Hey?”
“Perhaps because you’ve spent more centuries than I’d care to count very loudly pretending that you do,” Storm said sharply, before Alusair could say something worse.
The grin Elminster gave them both then was one Storm Silverhand had been seeing all her life. It had probably looked very much the same riding his possibly then-beardless face when he’d been about six summers old, back in long-vanished Athalantar.
“Well,” the Sage of Shadowdale said mildly, “he’s obviously going to wherever the treasure he’s seeking is really hidden. Somewhere nearby; near enough that he could use the Dragonskull Chamber as a navigational landmark to reach it.”
“A pirate, sailing my palace in search of buried treasure.” Alusair’s smile was bitter.
Elminster’s impish grin brightened. “That’s a very good way to think of Cormyr’s nobility. Rapacious pirates, all of them.”
“A wizard would know,” Alusair said over her shoulder as she departed the balcony through the nearest wall.
Storm and Elminster hastened to follow her. After all, they had to use the door.
Amarune danced at the very edge of the stage, tossing her head to let her unbound hair swirl as she crawled along the polished rim like a panther, growling and purring playfully at the men—and a few women, too—gazing longingly at her from the nearby tables.
Though not a hint of it showed on her face or in her manner—she was good at that—she was slightly irritated and almightily interested in what was going on at just one of the tables.
The one right in front of her.
Whereas the Lord Delcastle and his two companions seemed not to think she had ears at all, the way they freely discussed the council so close to her.
Oh, they knew she was there, all right.
The other two couldn’t keep their eyes off her, and Lord Fancybritches Delcastle, wearing his usual easy smile, was idly tossing coins to her in a steady stream, to keep her posing right in front of them.
His aim was as unerringly teasing as ever, too.
Yes, by the Dragon, the three genuinely seemed unaware she could hear all they were saying—and she was listening to them intently.
Such a gathering of nobles, after all, would mean the richest business of this season coming right into her arms, if she was able to spread word of her charms just right. Exclusive, that’s what they’d want; something they can have that others won’t be able to taste … something thrillingly dangerous and dirty …
She’d seen the chamberjack just once, when visiting the royal court to pay her taxes. He was quiet, perhaps the politest courtier she’d ever encountered, and darned handsome to boot. That’s why she’d remembered him … Tarandar, that was his name.
The other one was a war wizard, but that was all she knew about him. Except that if he was a spy and a veteran hurler-of-spells, he was also the greatest actor in all the Realms. If he wasn’t an inexperienced, thoroughly embarrassed youngling, she’d eat her mask—right then, in his lap, and without sauce.
She decided she’d much rather decorate Tarandar’s lap, instead.
As for the loudly effeminate fop across the table from them, well, he was good winking