The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [149]
"I'm not your friend," Hawkril growled, thrusting his face close to the red and quivering visage just beyond the bottle, "I'm an Overduke of Aglirta, and I'm giving you a command. Consider how quickly you'll obey-for your alacrity may have some bearing on two things: how much longer you're cellarer of Flowfoam, and the remaining length of your life."
"Hawk, I know he was extremely insulting, but let him live, hey? Empty yon bottle over his head, make him fetch a dozen different ones for each of us, and let's be gone from here," Craer muttered, from behind the hulking armaragor.
Hawkril swung around to give the procurer a surprised look. Craer was sitting at a kitchen table, looking at his bowl of soup as eagerly as if a friend had just drowned in it. "You feel as restless as I do?" he asked.
The procurer didn't look up, but he did nod. Emphatically.
Hawkril turned back to the cellarer. "Fetch those two dozen bottles-in a pair of carrybaskets, mind. If you do so swiftly, I won't have to come looking for you, will I?"
For the first time in his fife, the Lord High Cellarer of Flowfoam Castle set about obeying an order at a run.
Their stroll ended up where they'd both known it would, though neither had said a word in that regard: at the graves of Sarasper and Brightpennant. Several empty bottles had been discarded in their wake, and the huge haunch of boar in Hawkril's hand had been literally whittled down-with two very sharp belt-knives-to a short end of meat around a long, bare bone.
"So, have you decided what it is that overdukes do yet, besides bully servants?" the shorter stroller asked his taller companion.
"Chase wenches and steal things, if they're also procurers," came the dry reply, and then, in a different voice, "No. Nor have I looked ahead, to beyond battles against Serpents and nobles. I've never thought any of us will five to see time enough to wonder. If ever we drive down the Snake-lovers, and somehow hammer loyalty into the nobles, 'twill be our turn to do the same to the merchants of Sirlptar next."
Craer opened another bottle, poured a goodly amount on one grave and then the other, saluted the fallen ones quietly by name, and then asked, "So what's been riding you, these last few days? Between fights to the death and a certain Lady of Jewels, I mean?"
Hawkril let out a long, reluctant sigh and said slowly, "Fear. Fear for her. Something's going to happen to Embra. Something bad. I can feel it."
He looked sidelong at Craer, expecting the usual wry quip or light-heartedly tasteless comment, but his old friend wore no smile. Lifting his eyes to meet Hawkril's gaze, the procurer nodded soberly. "I've dreamed of such things, too-different horrors, different grim fates, but all of them dark."
They stared at each other in silence for a long, long breath, and then in unison, without another word spoken, turned to look south across the river.
On the ever-rushing waters below, a larger, grander barge than most-one of the most splendid for hire in Sirlptar-was drawing up to the Flow-foam docks.
"Of course it's not wise," the King of Aglirta told his guards angrily, "but I'm going to do it anyway. The Three damn me if I'm going to cower in a corner of my palace forever, neglecting my realm around me. These idiots made me King, and I'm not going to sit there in front of them shirking every last royal duty!"
The idiots so forcefully indicated were the overdukes who walked so closely and watchfully around him, only a faint shimmering of the air indicating that two of them were using the Dwaer-Stones held ready under their court cloaks to shield the young king.
Blackgult-who'd brought word up from the docks to the bard Flaeros Delcamper, and so also to all in the room with him-strode before King Castlecloaks, and Embra Silvertree walked behind him, with the sorceress Tshamarra Talasorn flanking the monarch on one side, and Flaeros walking beside him on the other. The royal guards in their full armor, Suldun Greatsarn watchfully at the rear, stalked along in a tight ring