Elminster's Daughter - Ed Greenwood [67]
"Oh, my jaw aches," she muttered, as she crawled up the body of her battered guard, both of them wincing at their bruises, and kissed him.
"Gods above, Luse," he whispered, "is this one more way of hurting me? My nose…"
"I'll help you forget your nose," she said huskily, finding and tugging at his laces. Malask Huntinghorn groaned and shook his head. Oh, Alusair. Ah, fortunate Cormyr… and lucky me, too.
Ten
SCHEMES AS BLOOD-RED AS RUBIES
Beware all schemes, O king, for such beasts have a way of shedding blood on the floors of this kingdom like poured-out sacks of rubies.
The character Malarvalo the Minstrel
in Scene the Fourth
of the play Daggers In All Her Gowns
by Nesper Droun of Ordulin
first performed in the Year of the Morningstar
Rhauligan was barely out of the turret when Narnra cast a glance back over her shoulder and saw him.
She gave him a glare, ran on a few paces, stopped, peered off to the left where the balconies and turrets of Haelithtorntowers jutted closest to the wall-then took a few racing steps and launched herself between the leaf-cloaked boughs of the great trees of the mansion gardens, in a daring leap that…
… took her safely to a clinging landing on the head of a brooding gargoyle, chin in hand, holding up one corner of a balcony.
Rhauligan hoped it was rock-solid carved stone and not of one those stonelike monsters that would suddenly move to bite and claw-probably when she was safely gone, but he was trying to land in the same spot.
Keeping his eyes on her to make sure she set no traps behind, Rhauligan trotted along the wall, looking for the right place to make his running jump.
He sighed, once.
Caladnei and Narnra, I'm keeping a tally here. And if the gods grant me more luck than any man in the kingdom has enjoyed for the last century or so, I just might live to collect it.
Rhauligan took his last two running steps with the wind in his face and launched himself into the air. The balcony was enough lower than the top of the wall that he'd been able to clearly see through the windows of the room it opened into. No one was moving therein. He'd paced off the run calmly enough, and now he'd just have to hope he'd been…
… right. He landed hard, numbing his elbows on the lichen-splotched old gargoyle and losing a lot of breath-but his first surge of angry strength took him safely up and over the intricately carved stone rail onto a balcony that seemed far too spattered with bird dung to belong to a house that held caring servants. The Harper took but an instant to safely plant his feet ere he looked up.
The long legs and trim behind of Narnra Shalace were just vanishing through an open window, high above.
As Rhauligan leaned out to peer, she slipped inside the window, favored him with the briefest of glares, and closed it behind her. Through its dung-streaked, amber-tinted glass, the Harper saw her turn its catch, latching it firmly.
So. He could either climb the outside wall-and though he was the stronger of the two of them, he was also much the heavier-to break that window and force his way in or stand here on a nice level balcony and do the same to a window or door.
Out of habit Rhauligan ducked low and turned back to peer over the balcony rail. Its gargoyles were still gargoyles, and there was no sign of guards or anyone else in the mist-beaded shade-gloom of the lush garden below.
He spun again to the door, still in his crouch. Nothing moved in the room beyond the door-which was dark and seemed to hold a lot of large, draped things… furniture shrouded in dust-sheets. Rhauligan's eyes narrowed. Lady Ambrur was certainly still in Marsember-or had been, yester-morning-so this couldn't be the usual nobles' practice of shutting up one house and journeying to another… not that current local Harper wisdom knew of Lady Joysil Ambrur having any other abode. Of course, she could be invited to some Sembian hunting lodge or Cormyrean upcountry castle at any time, but…
Perhaps she merely found the house too large for her daily purposes and used this part