The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [137]
He seemed a good man, and growing into his own before her eyes. Quiet ways and all, Korvaun was fast becoming a leader of men; she'd seen his friends' faces when they looked to him, and she was only a guildsmaster's daughter and housekeeper, a simple spinner of threads. He was courteous to commonborn women, and had honored a servant girl at the funeral, before many nobles. None of that swept away the fact that he was a noble of Waterdeep.
Everything was happening so fast. Father had come roaring home, bellowing orders and all but dragging them from the house! She'd barely had time enough to seize her spinning tools before he hustled them to an inn. Faendra, of course, had been pleased at the novelty and the prospect of some leisure, but Naoni wanted silence and solitude, the solace of soft shadows, in green places like this one. Grand folk had their private gardens and arbors, but this garden of the dead was the only haven available to the likes of Naoni Dyre.
So she sat in silence, waiting for the quiet green peace to find its way into her heart.
* * * * *
"Another building's down! The Lords did it!"
Heads turned as the shout rang back off magnificently carved tomb walls.
The City of the Dead was crowded with folk escaping the stink of Dock Ward fish-boilings and a harbor dredging. There had been many mutters of "The New Day, they call themselves!" and "Piergeiron's dead, and they've shoved someone else into his armor to fool us! He crossed some Hidden Lord or other, and they killed him for it!" and even darker sentiments as peddlers and stroll-cooks moved through the throngs.
There was a restless mood in the parklike cemetery. The Watch patrols, walking their usual patrols, felt it. As angry talk swelled around them, they kept their mouths shut and pretended not to hear, where at other times they'd have stepped forward to warn and remonstrate.
Nor were they the only ones treading lightly in the cemetery. Highcoin folk who might on other occasions have loudly called on the Watch to chastise and more, kept their peace and walked warily, listening instead of airily voicing opinions.
"The Lords are driving Dyre down, building by building!"
Heads turned.
"What's that? What building?" a merchant bellowed, in a voice that rang out like a warhorn.
"The Lords are smashing the New Day!" someone else shouted, bringing inevitable calls of, "What's the New Day?"
Folk were gathering quickly, striding frown-faced from bowers behind more distant burial halls. In the darker shadows of the tombs, half-seen ghostly shapes stirred restlessly, called forth into the sunlight by the sudden anger and fear riding the air.
"The Lords are against us all!" a man roared, waving his belt-knife.
A woman standing near shrieked, "They can blast down all our homes, and take our coins from among our bones, and build anew!"
"They're hunting Varandros Dyre in the streets right now," a breathless cap-merchant gasped, trotting up the cobbled path from the nearest cemetery gate. Others, standing near, took up that cry.
"They'll kill us all, if they think we're of the New Day!"
"What's this 'New Day'?"
"Get home and get your coins before they bring the walls down on your children! Fetch your swords! This is it!"
"The Lords are hunting the New Day! The Lords are after us all!"
"What by all the blazing Hells is the New Day?"
That exasperated outlander's shout was lost in the rising roar of angry Waterdhavians drawing belt-knives and gathering nose-to-nose to shout rumors into dark truths, and dark truths into war-cries.
A Watch horn rang out-then another-and suddenly the crowd knew its foe.
Heads turned, eyes peered, pointing arms shot out-and in an instant the Watch became the hunted.
"This-this is not right!" an old noble growled, reaching for his sword.