Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [54]
"Nay! I heard she plucked off all their heads-and ate 'em!" an old woman said proudly, as if King Belaur personally had told her.
"Ah, get gone wi' ye. Why'd she do that, eh?" The man next to her stepped on her foot, hard.
She hopped in pain, shaking her finger under his nose. "Just you wait, clever-nose! Jus' you wait an' see-if they has carved wooden 'eads when they're borne past us, or their heads covered wi' the burial cloaks, then I'm right! An' there's some folk in Hastarl as'll tell you Berdeece Hettir's never wrong! Jus' you wait!"
Farl and Elminster had been trading amused looks, but at this Farl smiled and said out of the side of his mouth, changing his voice so that it sounded gruff and distant: "I suppose as thou wouldn't put money on it, hey?"
In an instant, the alley was a bedlam of shouting, red-faced Hastarl folk holding up fingers to indicate their wagers.
"Wait a bit, wait a bit," Elminster said-and silence fell: Eladar the Dark never talked. "It always distresses me to see ye wager," he said, looking around earnestly, "because after, there's so much hard talk and people furious at those who didn't pay. So if ye must wager-and ye know I don't throw my coins about thus-I'll write down thy claims, and all can be settled fair, after."
There was much talk… and then a growing agreement that this was a good idea. Elminster tore the sleeve from the rotten shirt he was wearing, got some ink from the street-scribe in trade for a quill that he'd stolen out of a window a tenday ago, and was still carrying in his boot, and set to work, scratching out sums with a rough-pointed needle.
In the rush, none of the folk noticed Farl met several heavy wagers, standing always for the headless side. Elminster worked his way along the line to its head, dodged inside to continue wagering, hung the scribbled sleeve on a high nail, and plunged headlong and fully clothed into the old wine-press tub that served as the bath. The water was already gray with filth, and Elminster came out again just as fast, pursued by the furious proprietor. They dodged around the rinse-pump while Farl worked the handle, dousing them both with rather cleaner water-and then Elminster thrust four silver bits into the man's hand, leapt to retrieve the wager sleeve, and scampered out again.
"Gods blast thee! 'Tis a gold piece a head this day!" the man bellowed after them.
El spun around, disgusted, and tossed a handful of silver bits in the bath-keeper's direction. "He's a worse thief than we've ever been," he muttered to Farl as they headed for a good place to hide the sleeve. It seemed fitting that the folk of Hastarl were willing to pay good gold to see the backs forever of the mage royal and a good handful of magelords besides.
"Or a better," Farl agreed. Word of what had befallen was all over the city; folk talked of nothing else around them as they walked-and something of the air of a festival hung over the city. El shook his head at the open laughter, even among the patrols of armsmen. "Well, of course they're happy," Farl explained to his wondering partner. "It's not every night that some helpful young thief-even if he does prefer to give all the credit to some mysterious mage who conveniently came out of thin air and just as helpfully vanished back into it again-downs the most hated and feared man in all Athalantar and many of his fellow mages… not to mention a bunch of men that shopkeepers in this city owe a lot of coins to. Wouldn't you be, in their place?"
"They just haven't thought about which cruel magelord will step forward to proclaim himself mage royal, and make them even more fearful than before," Elminster replied darkly.
The wide streets along the route of the dirge-walk were filling already; folk who owned finery (and bath facilities of their own to prepare for its wearing) were pushing for the best positions- unaware of the flood of less polite and poorer neighbors who would shortly be charging in to seize the vantage points they wanted, regardless of who thought