The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [143]
Naoni shivered.
"Tell me of your spinning," Korvaun said hastily, not wanting her to dwell on the butchery she'd seen. "You're marvellously skilled at it, all magic aside. Who taught you?"
Naoni tensed. Though she didn't move, she suddenly seemed farther away.
"I taught myself," she murmured. "I taught myself many things. My mother died when I was twelve."
Korvaun knew old pain when he heard it. "What did she die of?" he asked gently.
"Lack of coins," Naoni said in a strangely lifeless voice.
Silence fell, and Korvaun carefully said nothing, waiting.
"Not something any noble would know about," she added bitterly, turning around in his arms until her back was against him. "You with your rich clothes and carefree carousing and days so full of whim and idleness."
Korvaun decided not to even try to defend himself or the other proud Houses. Instead he asked, as gently as before, "How can one die of poverty when married to a guildmaster?"
"Father wasn't guildmaster then, and commanded just a building crew. He did the work of six, but couldn't earn coins enough. Not nearly enough."
"For?"
"For cure-potions and temple-healings to banish Mother's fever. We barely had enough for her funeral."
"So you had to become mother to the Dyres."
"Yes," Naoni said, and added in a voice as soft and steely as the thread she'd spun, "and I will die before any Dyre lacks for coin again!"
"Well, the cloaks you made for us should soon have you set up in a grand house-in North Ward, say-with all you could want. We've been asked about them scores of times already, by many of Waterdeep's finest."
"Finest," Naoni echoed scornfully. "Finest thieves, finest swindlers, finest-gahh!"
Korvaun held silent, seeking the right words. A great wound begat Naoni's pain, but 'twas an old one. It seemed she'd spent a lifetime rubbing salt into it. If there was any chance of a life for them together, they had to be done with this.
"I wasn't aware that the gods gave any noble child the slightest choice as to the station it was born to, any more than they offer that choice to a babe born to a tavern dancer in some Dock Ward alley. That's a lot of venom to be born of mere envy," he said, picking words likely to goad her into wrath.
The woman in his arms almost exploded. Naoni Dyre managed to sit bolt upright and twist herself around to face him all in one movement. She glared at him with more fire than all the ghosts in all Waterdeep could manage.
"Envy? ENVY? Let me tell you something, Lord High and Mighty Helmfast! I don't envy nobles, I pity them-but I pity far more the folk who must live with them and suffer the hurts of their thoughtless or malicious caprices!"
"Caprices?"
"Hah, think you a mere stonemason's daughter can't know a fancy word or two, do you?"
Naoni was literally trembling with anger. Korvaun held her very gently, wondering what to do.
Nose to nose with him, she hissed fiercely, "Do you truly want to know why I despise nobles?"
Korvaun swallowed. "Yes."
He remembered what he'd seen in the Warrens vault: Varrencia Cassalanter's wedding invitation, adorned with an etching of the happy couple. He'd seen at a glance what he'd never noticed until that moment: Varrencia and Faendra Dyre looked startlingly alike.
"Once, not so long ago," Naoni hissed, "there was a young and beautiful lass, a commoner who loved a young noble. Loved and was loved, or so she believed, until the day she knew she was with child, and shared that joy with her lord-and had his gates slammed shut in her face. Her kind and faithful lord promptly took a wife of as high station as his own."
Naoni's face was wet, now; in the light of the web Korvaun could see tears on her cheeks.
"When she was large with child, he sent masked men to snatch her away to a country estate. The ride was hard, and her time came early. Lying