Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [3]
Athlan's younger sister, Shayna, was suddenly the family heir now. Her stunning beauty had built to a peak, and her willfulness was making her dalliances with every second or third young and handsome Purple Dragon armsman in the vale increasingly difficult to hide.
Impossible to hide, more like, thought the seneschal. He'd soon have to call in war wizards to nose about in every corner and cranny of the keep. Murders of nobility might be hushed up, but never the sudden deaths of heirs or of any noble in a border hold. These days, Sembia was looking westward with ever-hungrier eyes. Renglar sighed.
No, the folk that the Purple Dragons privately called "the Happy Dancing Mages" would come. This was murder, all right. No young noble heir goes alone into a so-called haunted tower of a castle and gets his tongue slashed to prevent any screams, a sword thrust through him from behind-and some spell or other that burns him to a shell-by accident!
Later, he said as much. Most of the ashes had been placed on the traditional saddle bowl and the dead lord's horse had been whipped into a gallop to strew them wide and far over the vale. The Summerstars retired to their quarters-no doubt to yell at each other over the details of Lord Athlan's will. They hadn't even bothered to accompany the priest of Chauntea on the solemn march down to the family crypt to inter the traditional lone handful of still-smoking ashes in Athlan's upturned helm. The seneschal and his guest, however, both did.
When it was all over-after the crypt doors had' boomed shut and been sealed with a final benediction and the priest had scuttled away with the traditional gold goblet full of gold lions as payment-Renglar sighed once more and turned to his tall, solid, sharp-eyed guest. "Care for some wine? We need to talk."
"Yes, and we do," the tall man agreed simply. They went up the stairs together. "He meant a lot to you?"
The seneschal shrugged. "He was a good lad. Lots of dreams-and the dreams of young men light the fires that brighten Cormyr in years to come. I liked him, aye, and I put a lot of hours of sword-work in on him all wasted now."
"Would he have grown into another Pyramus?"
Renglar shrugged again, and stopped to unlock a seldom-used door. "It was too early to say. He had a touch of the let's-use-magic-because-it's-quick-and easy streak, and was drifting into poking into small magics because of that. Another Pyramus? I don't think so."
They went through the door. With a heavy clang and rattle of chain, it swung to behind them. The seneschal of Firefall Keep took a torch from a wallbracket ahead, and led the way. His guest followed, eaglelike eyes moving this way and that, missing nothing… Then again, it might be his task to besiege this place some day.
Below those alert eyes, Ergluth Rowanmantle was growing stout. There were white hairs in his side whiskers, but the veined and corded hands that swung his mace of office were still strong. He wore a heavy broadsword in a plain battle scabbard at his belt, not the glittering rapier favored by his fawning counterparts who dwelt closer to Suzail. The boldshield of the district of Northtrees March was a sensible man and a veteran warrior, risen to his present rank out of competence and not gentle birth. There was not a man within a hundred miles that Renglar Baerest respected more.
They both knew a storm was coming, a storm of war wizards. The mages would skulk about, ask prying questions, use spells to peer into the mind of the seneschal to be sure he hadn't murdered his pupil and liege. If there were going to be glasses of wine drunk, and calm and reasoned words exchanged, now would be the best occasion, possibly the only chance, for a long time to come.
This little-used back passage led to a steep stair up. Both men took firm hold of their swords and dug into the climb, swinging their arms. They were puffing in unison by the time they reached the top. The two guards there saluted smartly as the seneschal and the local Purple Dragon commander passed between them and turned right, to another