Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [76]
Laden servants were hastening back and forth across the forehall between the pantry and a shuttered larder where wagons left deliveries. Asper reached out her free hand to a passing maidservant.
"Maerilee – show this honored merchant your back."
Maerilee nodded, undid a bodice-lacing atop one of her shoulders, turned away, and let her garment fall to her waist. Across shoulder blades and a deepcorded back, Montheir found himself gazing upon a webwork of deep white and purple scars.
The servant looked at Asper, who nodded, and Maerilee bowed her head and went on her way. "She displeased my lord," Asper told the Athkatlan softly,
"over a debt."
Paraster Montheir said nothing and remained silent as she conducted him out through the great entry doors of the mansion, but he nodded to her as he would to an equal as they parted on the broad top step of the outside stairs.
He looked back once as he joined his guards and shuddered as he saw the wench in leathers wave casually to the two gargoyles – if that's what they were; great stone beasts with wings and claws and tusks – perched atop the doorposts, receiving their solemn salutes in return.
Asper seemed to speak to someone else as she turned to go in, someone ghostly, whose feminine head and shoulders seemed solid enough but who trailed away to nothingness well above the ground. The doors of Mirt's Mansion closed softly, and Paraster Montheir found himself listening to a high wail of pain coming from somewhere within that old, ramshackle, fortresslike house.
Asper smiled and shook her head as she shot the last bolt and turned back toward the stairs. The problem with watchghosts like Ieiridauna was that they loved dramatics. That cry of pain sounded more like a large and enthusiastic wildcat in heat than a woman in pain.
On the other hand, perhaps 'twas overly harsh to criticize another's acting. Laeral had been so overblown as to be about as convincing as a slappuppet play – though it had worked, hadn't it? – and if things had gone on much longer, a certain lass who rejoiced in the name of Asper couldn't have avoided bursting into wild, helpless laughter.
Shaking her head, she retraced her steps to Mirt's office.
This was an occasion when a little untruth served everyone well. There was no need for Paraster Montheir of Athkatla to learn that Maerilee Goodfellow had received her spectacular scars in pirate slavery in the Nelanther or how much Mirt had paid for her freedom when she'd caught his eye.
There was no need for a lot of merchants in bustling Waterdeep to learn a lot of things. When bound by carefully guided ignorance, they led – in Asper's opinion, at least, and she'd seen much of both ignorant and wise merchants and the few traders whose forebearers had done so well at making coins that they'd become the city's nobles – better lives.
The truly wise were rare gems, but a few scraps of wisdom tended to make men dangerous.
Wherefore Waterdeep was a groaning, overladen cart heaped high with danger. As Asper smiled ruefully to herself and strolled back into the office, Mirt was growling, "Just what sort of attack could lay low one of ye Seven? Not something I'd want to be in the same kingdom as, I'm thinking…"
Laeral nodded to Asper over the rim of a huge goblet that sparkled with deep blue Sossal snow wine. The Lady Mage was sitting with her booted feet up on Mirt's desk enjoying a good reward for her playacting whilst the Old Wolf prowled the room, barking questions at her.
"My sister is not hiding from foes she fears or nursing wounds," she replied calmly. "She's doing what we so often must: reacting to being hit on the nose with a new ball she's never seen before. She had no idea she needed to be juggling it among all the others we must keep in the air constantly, so she's letting some lesser balls bounce by themselves for a day or two, while she learns what she must about the new one, to know best how