The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [109]
The half-ogre came to the door. "All is ready," he said gruffly. He shook aside offers of help and carried Lilly himself to the waiting carriage.
The closed, flatbed carriage moved with somber pace to the Thann estate. Danilo and Arilyn saw that it was placed in the carriage house, then started for the villa. Word of this arrival had already reached the lord and lady. Cassandra met them at the door, her face white with fury.
"How dare you bring this tawdry matter to my door?" she demanded.
Danilo ignored her-probably the first time this slight had been offered the lady-and looked over her shoulder to address his father. "My lord, Lilly was in danger. You must have known that, yet you represented this to me as a minor nuisance. Now the girl is dead. Your daughter, my sister. I am sorry for any pain this may cost you, my lady," he said to Cassandra, "but this matter should have come to light long ago."
Before she could respond, the family steward blew into the room like a storm-tossed scarecrow. Arilyn had never seen the servant in such dishabille. His shirt was untucked, the sash and emblem that proclaimed his position was askew, and the strands of his sparse sandy hair stood up like bits of straw. A slight puffiness of his upper lip lent his mustache an asymmetry that, on any other man, might have been mistaken for a wry and roguish grin.
"Lord Gundwynd to see you, Sir, Madame," he announced with stiff dignity and slurred diction.
"Not now, Yartsworth," all those present said in rare and perfect unison.
"He is most insistent," the steward observed, gingerly touching his fingertip to his swollen lip.
Cassandra took note of this, and her indignation rose to another stage. "Show him in."
The small, gray man burst into the hall. Before he could sputter out a word, Lady Cassandra bore down on him like a prevailing wind.
"This is beyond the pale, Gundwynd! You might mistreat your own servants and suffer no ill for it, but do not presume to abuse any person in my employ."
Lord Gundwynd fell back a step, some of the wind knocked from his sails, but quickly recovered his pique. "Your choice of words is telling," he said coldly. "You have heard of my trouble, but then, who has not?"
"Thann had losses as well," she pointed out.
"If only the loss ended with the ambush!" he exploded. "All the elves in my employ have left. Do you know how difficult it is to find riders for aerial steeds? As if that weren't enough, there is the threat that all those of elven blood in the city-and beyond, for all I know-will refuse to use Gundwynd transport and will not buy or sell goods carried by my family. Elves are few enough, thank the gods, but this scandal could mean my ruin!"
"My sympathies," Danilo said in flat, ironic tones. Arilyn noted that he shifted a step closer to her, wordlessly-and perhaps without thought or design-declaring his allegiance.
The lord whirled on him. "You will be sorry soon enough! I would not be surprised to hear that this whole affair is somehow your doing, you and that elf you keep company with. This one too, for all I know," he added, looking wrathfully at Arilyn. "Well, the truth will come to light. I will bring suit against Thann and Ilzimmer and let the Lords sort the thing through!"
A long moment of silence followed this pronouncement. Lord Rhammas turned so pale that Danilo feared he might faint.
Cassandra took a step toward her husband, as if her near presence might serve to bolster him. "Idle threats, Gundwynd. You have too much to lose to take such action."
"My family faces ruin, disgrace! If it comes to that, do you think I care who falls with me? I will know how this came about, mark me."
Danilo saw a pattern emerging. According to Bronwyn, the dream spheres had left Mizzen's shop the very day Gundwynd's caravan returned to Waterdeep. She had reported to him the malfunction of her bag of sending, and the small crystal orb that had remained in the magic bag. Lilly, who had sold a ruby stolen from the caravan, had had a dream sphere in her possession when