The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [100]
"Lords," Asper said firmly, "stare all you want, and help yourselves to yon decanters, but pay attention. Waterdeep has need of you."
Korvaun and Roldo found themselves nodding and mumbling in hasty unison. They traded glances, and with one accord, reached for decanters.
Asper grinned, rolled her eyes, and waited for glass stoppers to rattle back into place. Nobles. They seemed to need oiling even more often than dockworkers…
When they were both staring at her again, Asper handed a small silver device to Roldo.
"Don't lose or drop those, or all our strivings are wasted."
The two nobles looked down at their slipshields. The device Mirt had given Korvaun was a tiny shield of dull metal, but Roldo's was a fanciful pendant of a hawk soaring across a large and intricate snowflake.
"Winterhawk," Roldo murmured, recalling a tale he'd read in an old and rare book his bride had acquired in Silverymoon. For resale, of course.
Asper nodded. "An old tale, not often told," she said quietly, eyeing Roldo with something that might have been respect in her eyes.
Then she went on as briskly as before, "Now at the Gentle, you'll follow Laneetha-dark purple robe, eyes gray as a harbor mist-to her curtained chamber, where you can make the switch unseen. She'll identify herself. I'm telling you this in case anything happens to me in the tunnel. Come."
"Tunnel?" Roldo asked, face tightening.
"It'll get us behind Laneetha's curtain rather more quickly than the carriage could take us there, through underways neither of you will ever remember and have never seen nor heard of-and if you don't follow my instructions precisely as we proceed, will never be able to forget."
Roldo frowned. "Is that a threat?"
The smile fell from Asper's face so suddenly that Roldo half expected to hear it shatter on the floor. "No, it's a promise, on the part of the traps awaiting there. They're very good at keeping promises, believe me. Now, Lords, answer me this: do you swear to serve Waterdeep in utter secrecy, upon pain of death?"
"Lady," Roldo told her a little stiffly, "we are nobles."
"That's why I'm asking," she said quietly, as their eyes locked.
After a long moment, Roldo sighed and shrugged. "I swear. Of course." Korvaun echoed him, without the shrug.
"Good. Thank you." Turning to the nearest wall, Asper thrust aside a curtain.
Both Roldo and Korvaun knew the battered figure standing in the dimly lit room beyond leaning on a crutch-wherefore they both swallowed hard and rose to their feet in hasty unison.
This earned them a smile and the dry words, uttered in a strangely slow and thickened voice: "Well met, loyal lords."
* * * * *
Mrelder had never before seen so many people just lounging around an alley in bustling Dock Ward. Laborers were casually draped over barrels, fishmongers tallied catch-crates with chalk on a handy wall instead of inside whatever warehouse held those catches, and three burly men were fixing the axle-pins of a wagon even a sorcerer could see wasn't really broken.
Even if he stood boldly in the center of the cobbles like a man awaiting a duel, there wasn't much space left. Wherefore Mrelder went into a handy net mender's shop, pointed up its stairs, and offered the toothless old man behind the counter two gold dragons for "the use of yon upper window."
The old man grinned. "Three dragons. Chair's extra."
Mrelder rolled his eyes, dropped a third coin into the man's palm, and ascended. He was only half-surprised to discover a dusky-skinned, scowling titan of a sailor and a pale, thin girl who seemed to be clad entirely in scabbarded daggers there already, seated in chairs at the lone open window. It seemed there was a deep daily local interest in the comings and goings at Mirt's Mansion.
Either that or half the city already knew Lord Piergeiron was inside the stylish fortress. Mrelder settled himself in the last chair-a crack-seated, wobbly wreck, of course-just in time to see a very drunken young man in splendid but disheveled garb carried down the