Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [70]
Delcastle gave the messenger an almost comical look of injured innocence, shrugged, and announced grandly, “Come! We have a kingdom to save!”
He scooped a handful of gold coins from his purse and flung them on the table, turned with a swirl of his cloak, and strode for the door, the messenger on his heels.
Glathra watched them go. When they were quite gone, she allowed herself a loud sigh.
“Nobles,” she snorted. “Unruly children, every last one of them.”
She eyed the gold coins on the table. Surely he’d left enough to pay handsomely for a dozen such meals, or more.
And this one would all go to waste …
Her eyes fell on the nearest platter, just as a delicious smell of spicy, juicy, hot sausages wafted up to her.
Her stomach rumbled.
Slowly, hesitantly, she reached out.
That sausage proved to be every bit as good as it smelled, and in two ravenous bites was gone.
There were more.
Gods above, when had she last eaten?
As the serving maids drifted back into view, eyeing her doubtfully, the war wizard firmly sat down in Arclath’s still-warm chair and helped herself to the main platter.
Those sausages still beckoned, but she hadn’t had eels done properly for an age. They disdained sardragon sauce as “Marsembian glop” in the palace kitchens.
Uhmmm. They didn’t in the Eel’s kitchen.
The messenger’s name was Delnor, and he looked guilty as they sat down at Arclath’s usual table in the Dragonriders’, hesitantly darting uncertain glances this way and that.
The stages were empty, and there was no sign of even one alluring dancer, masked or otherwise. Nor anyone leering, cheering, or tossing coins. Of early morning hours, the Dragonriders’ Club offered members and their guests only tankards of strong broth and baths in scented water.
Aside from Delnor and the noble lord across from him, who was smilingly signaling that tankards be brought to them, the only patrons were a handful of drunkards and the wealthy and truly lazy, relaxing as servants—some their own and some provided by the club, but looking nothing like the sort of beautiful lasses who might at some other hour preen and pose unclad on a stage for anyone—bathed and shaved them. Delnor also saw washing, styling, and cutting of hair, and even some cleaning and mending of clothing and boots.
“So,” Arclath asked airily, “is the Lady Glathra always that much of a dragon? Or was she fond of Belnar? Or Halance?”
Delnor flinched as if he’d been slapped, flushed, then mumbled, “N-no. I think not, anyway. No. There were other … violent deaths in the palace last night. Uh, rumors abound that, ah, nobles were involved. And the ghosts that haunt the palace. Oh, and they’re saying the Silent Shadow is going to steal things, and old dead wizards—like Vangerdahast—may have been roused to walk the palace and make trouble by someone with an old grudge against Cormyr.”
“ ‘Someone’?”
“Uh, Elminster the Doomed, some are saying. Or crazy old Sembian lords on their deathbeds. You know … someone.” Delnor waved a hand dismissively then dared to really look for the first time into the eyes of the noble lord sitting with him. “Just talk. You … you care about any of this?”
“I know not what your general opinion of the nobility is, friend Delnor,” Arclath Delcastle replied, “but I assure you I am indeed interested in who killed my friends.”
One of his hands went to the hilt of his sword. “Very interested.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
SOMETHING OF AN UPROAR
The broth was good. Not to mention hot enough to burn tongues.
As the two men sipped cautiously from their tankards, Arclath’s firm demands of the serving maids were reluctantly obeyed; the owner of the club was summoned from her bed somewhere in the labyrinthine loft overhead.
Eyes hooded from the clinging edge of sleep, barefoot and clad in a very old and well-worn robe that looked as if it had once been someone’s rather magnificent carpet, Tress looked somewhat different than the vision in dark and clinging leather Arclath was used to.
She gave him a rather unfriendly look, yawned, and