The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [150]
Laughing at him behind their masks, preening as they plotted to reach out and smash down one more man who'd been fool enough to stand up to them.
Yet how was a man to make honest coin-in Waterdeep, too, gods cry all? This wasn't Thay or Calimshan or Zhentil Keep! Here the guilds were a man's shield against tyrannical clerks or spiteful Lords-weren't they?
Or was it all a game, and every hard-working merchant of Waterdeep a dupe left to scramble like an ant, as his "betters" sneered down at him?
If they reached out to crush him, as a man swats a stinging fly, what would befall Naoni and Faendra? Who'd stand with them, against… oh, gods.
Who but those nobles: Helmfast, Hawkwinter and the rest? Men who wanted but two things from his daughters, their charms and their coins-and would be gone the moment they'd snatched both.
"Tymora keep me alive," Varandros muttered under his breath.
"Father?" Naoni's voice was sharp with concern.
Dyre's head jerked up. How'd she opened the door without him hearing?
Both of his daughters were standing before him, Faendra bearing a tray holding three tankards of steaming mulled cider. Aye, three, not just his own.. Varandros frowned. "Yes?"
"Are you… well?"
"Well enough." He glanced at the tankards. "You've something to discuss with me?"
"Yes," Faendra told him firmly. Dyre snatched away a pile of building plans as she lowered the tray. Naoni was already moving two chairs to face him across his desk.
"Father, Faendra and I have eyes and ears," Naoni began. "We can't help but notice when things go awry."
"I'm doing well enough," Dyre said gruffly. "When was the last time either of you lacked for anything you needed, or the little fripperies you fancy?"
Naoni grimaced. "This isn't about pretty gowns and trinkets, Father. We're not children. I haven't been a child since my twelfth winter."
The double-edged truth of that struck deep. "Sit then," Dyre growled, "and speak."
The girls sat in smooth unison, gray eyes and blue regarding him gravely.
"You're worried about the Lords of Waterdeep," Naoni said bluntly, "and thinking they're behind the building collapses. You think they're targeting you and your friends in the New Day."
His eyes narrowed. "What know you of the New Day?"
"I heard it shouted like a battle cry as the City of the Dead went mad," she told him. "I saw people die with 'New Day' on their lips. By highsun, not more than a handful of folk in Waterdeep won't have heard of the New Day."
"And these worries are eating at you, Father," Faendra put in, lifting a tankard. "Time and again you stare at yon cellar and sewer maps, thinking the Lords are tunneling under-"
"Yes, yes," Varandros snapped. "So I do! And what affair-"
"Is it of ours?" Naoni broke in. The cold ring of sudden steel in her voice cut through her father's bluster, leaving him gaping at her in silence. "Faendra and I might not actually put mallet to stone, but we manage your home and offices, offer hospitality to your guild friends, run your errands, visit your worksites-and bury your workmen. Why don't you ever confide in us, when there's so little we don't already know? Speak to us."
"And hear our advice," Faendra put in, the quaver in her voice betraying her nervousness. Varandros rounded on her out of long habit; pounce on any weakness in negotiations, and press it-
"You always told us a prudent man enters no tunnel alone," Naoni declared. She tapped the sewer plans. "Yet that's what you're planning, yes? If you're right about the Lords, they'll be waiting… and you'll die."
"And if you take a crew down without a city contract," Faendra added, looking at the ceiling as if trying to remember her lines and say them precisely, "they'll know, and others will notice-and one way or the other, the Lords will have to move against