The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [75]
"But Father-"
"But son," Golskyn mocked him, "you can find words to do no more than feebly try to justify your own failures. You see Waterdeep well enough but still fail to see yourself. Has your vaunted sorcery brought us one of the Walking Statues yet? And if it did, how would you then protect the rest of us against the alerted Watchful Order or this Lord Mage of Waterdeep everyone whispers of with awe? Or the energetic buffoons of the local Watch, who can call the clanking-armored Guard out to march on us from all sides, to say nothing of fly down at our very heads? Have you a plan to defeat them all? Or some mighty spell you've been hiding from me?"
Mrelder flushed, anger rising. Again his father was dismissing him with scorn. He should have known not to expect more. Hope, it seemed, was the latest of Golskyn's victims.
"Go and scheme some more," Golskyn of the Gods decreed coldly, pointing at the door, "and come up with something useful!"
* * * * *
The Meadows were lovely on a midsummer morn, fragrant with flowers, sweet grasses, and swift-drying dew. The cleared lands east of Waterdeep's walls were a fine hunting ground. Pheasants and grouse nested in plenty in the tall, wind-rippled grass, and plump hares were easy prey for the bright-feathered hawks of nobles.
Taeros and Korvaun rode without speaking, their glossy mounts trotting briskly. Korvaun's invitation had come by messenger late the night before. Taeros had agreed to come riding at this ungodly hour-a mere two bells past dawn-mostly out of curiosity. On the pommel of his black mare's saddle rode a hooded peahawk very nearly identical to the bird perched on Korvaun's golden, white-maned stallion. The blue and green plumage of his friend's bird was perhaps a shade more brilliant, but his, Taeros thought, was more pleasingly marked.
He waited as long as he could before raising the subject that had no doubt prompted this outing. "You're seldom as angry as you were last night," he observed, as they halted on a little hillock they'd flown their hawks from hundreds of times before. "How did Beldar so offend you?"
Korvaun unhooded his hawk and undid its jesses. The bright little raptor immediately hopped onto his gloved wrist, and he tossed her into the air.
"Beldar's a fine lad, make no mistake," Korvaun said slowly, watching his hawk wing happily into the sky, "but he can be far too swift and loud in dismissal of common folk."
Taeros echoed Korvaun's words over the casket: "The measure of a man is the worth he accords those around him."
Korvaun's smile was faint. "You don't sound convinced."
"I agree in the main," Taeros replied cautiously, "and 'twas certainly tactless of Beldar to make such remarks in the presence of a servant girl." He turned his head suddenly from following the flight of the hawk to add slyly, "Especially a little brown lark in the employ of a white dove."
Korvaun flushed, and Taeros whooped with laughter. "Aye, I thought you paid rather close court to the elder Dyre lass. Though, forgive me, she seems… singularly lacking in color, despite her red hair."
"No woman is half so fair in my eyes," Korvaun said earnestly, "Naoni has a quiet and restful spirit, yet she's quick to see what needs doing. She's swifter to think of others than of herself, and as kindhearted as she is sensible."
Kindhearted? Sensible? Not words that sprang to the mind of Taeros Hawkwinter when he daydreamed of feminine perfection, but then, feminine imperfection was more to his liking. Take the servant girl, now: Lark was no more a beauty than was her mistress, but Taeros admired the keen edge of her tongue.
"Her hands are touched by Mystra Herself," Korvaun went on. "Only a blessed-of-the-goddess could spin gems into thread. Pretty Faendra says Naoni could spin broken dreams whole, if she took it in mind to do so."
"Perhaps so, but her father, the so-fierce stonemason, will have your guts for