The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [44]
Korvaun found that his mouth had fallen open. Uncomfortably aware of the weight of the Old Wolf's gaze, Korvaun murmured, "I'd never considered before that the commoners might get angry at, well, the way of things."
Mirt's gaze turned mocking, and Korvaun found himself burning with embarrassment.
"I mean, at what we young nobles have always done-pranks and swordplay and jollity. The common folk always just seemed to-"
"Get out of the way as best they could, an' otherwise just stand and take it?"
"Well, yes. Exactly. And yet I see it, now: they're right to be furious. We smash what they can ill afford to lose, and our jests mock them even when we don't mean to… and yet most of the time we do."
Mirt nodded. "The road to being deeply loved, no?"
"No," Korvaun agreed a little grimly, and drank.
Liquid fire promptly ran up his nose as well as down his gullet, and left him sputtering.
The Old Wolf chuckled, deftly plucked the decanter from failing Helmfast hands, and dealt Korvaun a slap on the back that would have led to prompt face-first disaster if he hadn't also raised the knuckles of his decanter-holding hand like a wall in front of Korvaun's chest.
Korvaun wiped away tears and croaked, "What is this… stuff?"
"Firebelly. 'Tis all the rage in the pirate ports, an' goes well with the strongest cheese. Makes your breath sweet, clears out the pipes-as ye've found-an' is very good for ye."
Through still-watery eyes Korvaun found Mirt grinning at him, and gasped, "Are you drinking it, too?"
"Of course I am, ye silly man; I have some professional ethics. So it's dawned on ye at last that the common folk of our fair city might be discontented an' have cause to be. An' now?"
"An uprising would be terrible. It must be forestalled, and you… are of common birth, wise to the streets, and yet are… well, widely rumored to be-"
Mirt's eyes were bright and steady, offering no aid at all, and Korvaun wallowed in blushing embarrassment for a breath or two ere he managed to blurt: "-a Lord of Waterdeep!"
"Well, now. Rumors can be such ugly things, can they not?"
"So can truths," Korvaun told him quietly. "Nobles learn that much, at least. Even when secrets…" He paused, wondering just how to say what was in his thoughts.
"Are such fun, an' the game that all your elders are playing?" Mirt asked, his voice very dry.
Their gazes met squarely. After a moment, Korvaun nodded.
"Merchants are no different from nobles when it comes to secrets," the Old Wolf said gruffly, reaching down behind his chair to bring up a second decanter. "'Tis just that more of our secrets are about money. Nobles have more idle time to play at pride an' betrayal, but your biggest, sharpest secrets are all about coins, too. Inheritance, hidden debts, obligations, trade-ties gone wrong; all of that."
"All of that," Korvaun agreed. "So what should be done-no, what can I do-to take the commoners a step back from their anger?"
Mirt unstoppered his new decanter, sniffed it, and asked the stopper curiously, "Why should ye do anything?"
"Well, if we nobles are the cause, we must be the ones to make amends, and it seems fairly clearly that we are the cause."
"Ye've taken the first stride already, young lord: ye've admitted that, an' seen Waterdeep differently because of it. Now, if ye could bring your young friends around to the same view…"
"I'll do that!" Korvaun said with sudden fire. "I'll go and tell-"
"No," Mirt growled, "ye'll not."
The youngest Lord Helmfast blinked at him. "Whyever not?"
"No one ever convinced a hot-headed young noble of anything-at least, not one who still keeps his brains in his codpiece an' hasn't yet had his teeth handed back to him by the world-by talking to him. Ye rush in with your jaw flapping, an' they'll listen an' think poor Korvaun's gone straight into gods-mazed idiocy, an' can safely be ridiculed or humored but either way ignored. Events have to bring your fellow lordlings around to seeing this for themselves."
"'Events'? Like a city-wide