The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [88]
Belgur did not have to look out through the screen at the Flagon's busy hearth to know how long that gave him-which was a good thing, because he was busy frowning at his superior. "Serpent-priests? You want me to bring Serpent-priests here?"
"It's most important," Weldrin murmured, "that I speak with either of those two without delay-in this booth, and alone. Outside this curtain, neither you nor they know me. If they're suspicious and want to come in force, let them, but say that Weldrin bids them tread softly and hide their faces."
Belgur gave him an uncertain look, so he added, "Four coins more, Bel. Remember that."
The ratlike little man nodded and ducked out of the booth. Weldrin waited until the next log rolled over in the taproom fire, sending forth its spray of sparks, before he followed. He did not go far.
The booth he left was at the end of a row of six that all looked into the taproom through shuttered screens, but opened not into that roaring scene of drinking and dining and warm fires, offering their curtains instead to a dim, quieter passage.
The passage held a booth-boy, who took coins from those desiring to use the booths, and-at the end, across from the one Weldrin had been using-an armed and alert warrior who made sure that no one refused to pay the booth-boy, or disturbed the occupants of the most expensive (and private) end booth. He and Weldrin ignored each other; it was the professional thing to do.
The booth Weldrin went to was at the other end of the row, a larger and better-lit room right beside the cross-passage that let scurrying tankard-lasses and hearth-boys stream from kitchens to taproom and back again. The Flagon might stand alone in the woods, but on nights as busy as this one, its guests made it almost its own village. One peopled with folk uniformly loud and hungry.
The booth Weldrin entered was almost as noisy as the taproom-which was abuzz with the news, brought by the high lady, her tutor, and her two bodyguards who'd come in just at dusk, that the Band of Four who serve the king were taking the legendary Dwaerindim Stones to the Silent House, curse of the Silvertrees, there to summon much long-hidden magic from Aglirta's glorious past, to defend the realm in this dark time.
Just as the prophecies said, some hissed, and fell to arguing whose prophecy was best, and what else those cryptic sayings foretold.
A dark plot hatched by the sorcerers of the Vale to gain access to the River Throne and seize it, others insisted-a claim amended by still others, who held that the plot belonged to barons and not world-witless wizards.
"World-witless wizards," Weldrin purred to himself as a particularly angry shout cut through the booths to echo down the passage. "I like that."
"Weldrin," one of the warriors hissed, the moment he'd shouldered his way in through the curtains, "that high lady out there-she's the Lady of Jewels!"
"Aye," another of the men said, setting down his tankard, "no doubt over it; she's the baron's brat, all right. What'll we do, Weldrin? Hey?"
"Run a sword through her?" the first warrior burst out.
"Huh," a fierce-whiskered man said with a leer, "I'd like to run something else into 'er, first. Then we'd see what sort of a sorceress she is!"
Weldrin held up his hands for silence. "Easy, lads," he snapped, his voice low but his tone clearly that of a man giving orders. "These are screens here, not wizardglass window; she can hear us as clearly as we hear her. Let's have no more names."
The warriors nodded and fell silent, their gazes fixed on him. Weldrin gave them a slow smile and took a wedge of nut cheese from the platter with one deft thrust of his belt-knife.
He'd been their commander before the baron's fall, and would be again-swordsorn of what had once been twenty Silvertree blades, now sadly reduced to eight. Weldrin of the Sixth, he'd been, among the Baron's Best. His men had thought so, too, or they'd never have stayed with him, following him all the way out here to the wild hindquarters of the