The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [72]
For a season and more the aging, childless King Baerimgrim had lingered in the shadow of the tomb, kept alive after being savaged by the claws of the green dragon Arlavaunta only by his great strength and the Art of Court Mage Ilgrist. The once-mighty warrior was a thin and failing husk now, unable to sire children even with magical aid, and preoccupied by ever-present pain.
In the time of Baerimgrim's ailing, Galadorna had suffered under the skirmishes and mischief-…crop-burning, and worse…of its five barons, all risen in ambition to be king after Baerimgrim. All had blood ties to the throne, all saw Galadorna as rightfully theirs… and Galadornans hated and feared all of them.
Inside the House of the Unicorn this day the tension was a thing thick and heavy enough to be cut with a knife…and there was no shortage of knives held ready in its dim, tapestry-hung halls. The King was no longer expected to see nightfall and had been carried to his throne and tied in place there by servants, sitting with grim determination on his face and his crown slipping aslant upon his brow. The wizard Ilgrist stood guard over him like a tall, ever-present shadow, his own somber black robes overlaid by the linked crimson-unicorns mantle of his office, and suffered no hands but his own to straighten the crown or approach closely. There was good reason for his vigilance.
All five barons, like vultures circling to be in at a dying, were prowling the palace this day. Ilgrist had asked the eldest and most law-abiding among them, the huge and bearded warrior whom men called the Bear, to bring his seven best armsmen to bolster the throne guard, and Baron Belundrar had done so. He stood scowling around at the three doors of the throne room right now, hairy hands laced through the hilts of the many daggers at his belt. He was watching his men as they stared stonily, nose to nose, at the far more numerous troops of Baron Hothal, who like their master had come to court this day in full armor, fairly bristling with cross-scabbarded blades. At the heart of where they stood thickest lurked their master in his own full armor, some Galadornans said he never took it off save to don new, larger pieces.
Other armsmen were here too, though out of their armor…and looking as wary and uncomfortable over it as so many unshelled crabs, among all the battle-ready warriors. Some of them wore the purple tunics of Baron Maethor, the suave and ever-smiling master of a thousand intrigues and even more Galadornan bedchambers. "Purple poisoners," some folk of the realm called them, and not without cause. Other servants…some of whom looked suspiciously like battle-worn hireswords from other lands, not Galdornans at all…wore the scarlet of Baron Feldrin, the restless trickster who grew gold coins at the end of his fingertips every time he stretched out his hands to take things, it seemed… and his hands were outstretched often.
Last among this fellowship of ready death strolled the haughty magelings and quickblades of the baron some folk at court deemed the most dangerous threat to the freedoms enjoyed by all Galadornans: Tholone, the scarred would-be mage and accomplished swordsman, who styled himself "Lord" rather than Baron, and had largely ignored the decrees and writ of the Unicorn Throne for almost a decade. Some said Arlavaunta had been called forth from her lair to attack the king by his spells…because Baerimgrim had been riding with many armed knights at his back to demand Tholone's renewed loyalty, and long-withheld taxes, when the dragon's attack had come.
"A flock of vultures," the king muttered, watching the liveried lackeys drifting into the throne room. "None of them people I'd choose to have standing by, watching me die."
Court Mage Ilgrist smiled thinly and replied, "Your Majesty has the right of it, to be sure." He made a small hand