Cormyr c-1, page 37
part #1 of Cormyr Series
She rose bolt upright on her bed and hurled the sodden pillow across the room. The heavy, waterlogged cushion struck an oval mirror as tall as the princess herself and shattered it into a spiderweb of cracks.
“Princess-” Aunadar said helplessly, and she answered him with a snarl of rage that rose into a scream, then thrust her fingers into the next pillow like claws, ripping and tearing.
Aunadar put firm arms around her and endured a few frantic moments of struggling and clawing before his lips found hers, and he began to stroke and soothe and rock her gently.
It seemed a long time before she broke free of his kiss, trembling, and said quietly, “I’m all right now, Aunadar. Let me go. Thank you.”
Aunadar Bleth released her and sat back, concern darkening his eyes, and she managed a wan smile. “I’m not handling this very well, am I?”
“Lady,” he said gravely, “I don’t think anyone faces the loss of her father very well. We do what we can, as the gods made us, and that is all we can expect and hope for.” He smiled faintly. “Right now, what I hope for is your smile. I haven’t see you smile in days!”
Tanalasta burst into fresh tears, a short shower that ended in a lopsided, sputtering smile. She put a hand on his cheek. “You are the sweetest of men, my Aunadar.”
“Oh? Deceived you, too, have I?” he teased, stroking her upraised hand. She chuckled weakly, and his lips found hers once more.
They rolled over on the bed, and Tanalasta came up alone. “No!” she said. “No, Aunadar… much as I’d like that right now, I can’t, I-I just can’t. There’s too much to worry about! Nobles muttering everywhere, rumors of rebels gathering in the King’s Forest and even somewhere right here in Suzail, that old wizard gliding around, smiling at me and waving his writ of regency whenever he passes! I can’t spend what may be my last few days of life rolling around on beds with you! What if the nobles came in and stabbed us both? What then?”
“Then we’d be together forever,” Aunadar said lightly, adding hastily, when he saw her brows darken in fury, “But you’re right, Lady Highness, and I am wrong to distract you now. Your birthright is this fair kingdom of ours, and I must tell you that I have been very busy these last few days trying to ensure that what is rightfully yours does indeed pass to you!”
“What do you mean?” Tanalasta asked softly, her eyes dangerous.
“I’ve been talking to all the nobility I can find here in Suzail, putting to them the blunt question of their loyalty to you, should Crown Princess Tanalasta claim the Dragon Throne in the face of Vangerdahast as a declared regent-or anyone else who thinks the throne might be his for the taking, ‘for the good of the realm.’”
“What did they say?” Tanalasta’s voice was calm, but the last pillow she’d caught hold of was now a tortured rag in her hands.
“Most of them offered guarded support,” Aunadar said carefully, “but many of them also complained about this and that which displeases them about the governance of the realm. I sense that if Cormyr is to stay strong under a ruling Queen Tanalasta-without its war wizards, perhaps-certain, ah, concessions to the nobility may be necessary to guarantee the security of the kingdom.”
“Were they any more specific?” Tanalasta asked dully.
“Some of them want a small say in the policies of the realm,” Aunadar said gently. “A council of nobles that you’d consult with, or something of the kind.”
Tanalasta frowned. “I see. So say the nobles, what of the others who dance ever closer to my father’s throne?”
Aunadar spread his hands, “Rumors, more than hard truth.”
Tanalasta waved a despairing hand. “Rumors, then-speak!”
The young pride of the Bleths leaned forward in excitement. “Hear, then: Your sister, Princess Alusair, has been seen to flee with her war band deeper into the Stonelands, apparently afraid to return to court. She and her nobles rode away from a patrol sent out from High Horn specifically to speak with them.”
“That sounds like my sister,” Tanalasta said with a sigh. “What else?”
“I almost hesitate to say, High Lady, because it is but rumor and could well fly false,” Aunadar said gently.
“Out with it!” Tanalasta ordered, exasperated.
The young nobleman bowed his head to signify obedience to her wishes and said gravely, “It concerns your mother, Tana. I was trying to find out if it was true before I told you. Queen Filfaeril has been stabbed by a would-be assassin’s blade in Eveningstar and lies wounded and delirious there, in priestly care. Lathanderites, I would guess. I’ve heard no word of poison, but-“
“No,” Tanalasta gasped, going very pale. “No-not Mother, too!”
Aunadar put an arm around her shoulders hastily, but she did not swoon or collapse into tears. He saw her bite a trembling lower lip and feel for a pillow that was no longer there. It was lying, now shredded, at her feet.
Gently he put another pillow into her hand, and her slim, soft white fingers-oh, he knew how soft-dug into the fabric like a falcon’s claw.
Dug in, and then let go. The princess tossed the pillow aside, swallowed, and said firmly but very quietly, “I’m all right. Go on, my Aunadar. There’s more, isn’t there?”
Her comforter nodded. “It’s Vangerdahast, of course.”
A spasm of fury crossed the face of the princess at the wizard’s name, and then was gone again. Her next words seemed to come with fresh energy she’d not shown before. “Yes? Speak!”
“He’s been seen flitting about the kingdom,” Aunadar said grimly, “and walking the halls of the court and the back alleys of Suzail even more energetically these last few days. Talking to nobles and giving them promises, spells cast to their order, or just plain gold. Gold from the royal treasury, of course.”
“He’s gathering his own following,” Tanalasta said faintly. She seemed unsurprised and calm. Her mind was engaged now, calculating what it would cost to buy a kingdom. And, Aunadar thought, how much it would cost to prevent that sale.
“Exactly,” Aunadar said, “and I’ve heard that both the court sages are off around the Realms gathering support-mercenary troops, even-for whatever he’s planning.”
“His royal regency,” Tanalasta said flatly. “A wizard ruling the realm.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Not a bad idea, actually,” she added, “so long as the rule is just and the mage mighty enough to hold off the inevitable attacks from rival mages. As the Simbul holds off the Red Wizards, to keep her realm of Aglarond safe.”
“Wizards can never be trusted, Tana,” the young nobleman said, kneading her shoulders gently. “You know that.”
His touch was bliss for her tight, tired neck and shoulders. The crown princess leaned back into his fingers with a sigh of pleasure. “Oh, Aunadar…”
“I’ll always be here to do this if you ask me to,” Aunadar murmured, close by her ear.
“Go on,” she said. “Keep those wonderful fingers at work and tell me more about the old wizard.”
She felt Aunadar shrug. “There’s not much more any of us know, Tana. He’s just here, and then there, and then gone. We don’t have the spells to chase him around the kingdom or fight him if he notices us following. But one doesn’t have to be a sage-even a court sage-to see that he’s up to no good. Remember the old tales: Cormyr’s wizards are loyal only to the crown, not to the one who wears it.”
In a place of darkness not far away, Dauneth Marliir took his eye away from his tiny spy hole and nodded. The scion of House Bleth was right. He’d already felt the same thing, in his own now cramped bones. Vangerdahast was certainly up to something.
The princess sighed. “You’re right, Aunadar.” She reached back and gently but firmly pushed away his massaging hands. “My thanks for that, but I must get dressed and get out of here. Even if I can’t stop wizards from snatching Cormyr from me, I need fresh air and a place to walk and to be up doing something! I’m not going to lie in my bed until they come to turn me into a toad or charm me into marrying the noble of their choice or even-gods!-our Lord High Royal Magician himself!”
She stormed out of the room, hauling on the cord that summoned her ladies-of-the-chamber as she did so. “Step out into the receiving room, Aunadar,” her voice came back faintly. “We’re not officially betrothed yet, and I don’t want people talking…”
From Dauneth’s hiding place, the faint sound of Aunadar’s assent drowned out her last words. They’d moved too far away for him to hear any more. Dauneth sighed, raked slivers of shattered mirror from his hair, took a last look through his spyhole, and crept away.
Someone else heard the faint sounds behind the wall and smiled. That would be young Marliir departing. She might as well follow suit.
The lady with eyes like flames spat out the rose she’d been absently toying with during her long, uncomfortable time curled up behind the wing tapestries of Tanalasta’s bed. Its stem was almost chewed through. Emthrara, the Harper, sighed and dropped the rose, then rubbed at her aching back and slipped away.
When a maidservant came into the room a moment later with Tanalasta’s discarded nightgown in her arms, she almost slipped on a rose lying on the floor. The servant picked it up and peered at it curiously. Someone had been chewing on the stem. She frowned, shrugged, and then carried it away for disposal, leaving the floor bare and unblemished once more.
Chapter 26: Death of Dhalmass
Year of the Wall (1227 DR)
Rhodes Marliir, youngest cousin of a minor relative of a fallen noble house, stalked the streets of Marsember hunting for the King of Cormyr. In its sheath, his serrated dagger wept sweet poison.
The fall of Marsember had come within a generation of the establishment of Sembia’s western border. Once the Purple Dragon established a permanent border with Sembia, the slow, continual tightening of his royal gauntlet around the port city began. Finally, just to stay free, the ruling Marliir family had been forced to publicly endorse the pirate trade in the city and to declare hostilities against the Forest Kingdom.
And that’s when Dhalmass, mighty Dhalmass, the Warrior King of Cormyr, crossed the marshes and took the City of Islands.
Rhodes Marliir was nobility in name only. His immediate family was not within spitting distance of the Marsembian throne, but his was the only branch that had not perished battling the invading horde. And now, blade in hand, the young rogue was intent on exacting his revenge.
The remainder of the town was in celebration, which angered Rhodes even further. These were the merchants and smugglers and thieves and petty nobles, like the Eldroons and the Scorils, who had loudly encouraged the ruling Marliirs to stand firm against the Purple Dragon. Then these supposedly loyal followers deserted the cause when the king’s forces first entered the marshes, and some-Rhodes suspected the treacherous Eldroon household-even guided the Cormyrean army through the tortuous byways of the marsh to the city’s open gates. Now those traitors tooted silver horns and threw gaudy bits of paper to celebrate their new masters and Marsember’s incorporation into the nation of Cormyr.
His uncles and great-uncles lay in Marsember Bog unavenged, along with the last of the Janthrins and the Aurubaens. Mighty Marsemban nobles all, who in life would not have allowed one such as Rhodes, born on the wrong side of the blanket to a poor relation, to pass through the door of any of their palatial homes. That did not matter to Rhodes. All he had gotten from his relatives was a noble name, and now, thanks to their bullheaded stubbornness, the power of that name was gone as well.
Still, Rhodes had his contacts in the city. Everyone knew Dhalmass had taken over the old Marliir manor as his base of operations a fortnight ago. But it was Halfhand Elos who reported that the newly arrived queen, Jhalass Huntsilver, had suddenly taken ill and the king was abroad in the city. The pawnmaster Jacka Andros told him the king was at the Cloven Shield, drinking with his victorious troops. By the time Marliir had reached the Shield, another source said that the king had adjourned to the Drowning Fish Festhall. And the proprietress of the Fish, the old crone Magigan, had noted gravely that his lustful majesty had just left, three empty kegs to the better, with a pair of young ladies, one supporting each arm. For a fee, Magigan would recall where they were going, and for a slightly larger fee, she would forget that fact-and her telling of it-forever, after she told Rhodes.
The last of the Marliirs paid the crone’s fee and sought out the apartment Magigan had mentioned. It was on one of the city’s outer islands, which served Rhodes well. Half of the city was located on a treble-handful of unnamed islands hunched along the marshy shore. These small islets were linked by innumerable bridges of crumbling stone and sea-weathered wood, which added further to the mazelike nature of Marsember.
The narrow streets and bridges of the inner islands were packed with revelers and soldiers. More warriors had fallen in the last two tendays to inebriation and exhaustion than had died in the brief siege of the city’s low walls. The two-tenday anniversary of the takeover, prompted by the arrival of Queen Jhalass and rumor of the king being abroad in the city, had served as reason enough to spark a new wave of revels hard on the heels of the previous ones.
The outward island was practically deserted. The last bands of partygoers clustered along its bridges, tossing empty bottles and insults at the barges beneath them. Here the buildings leaned against each other like drunks, and shadows seemed darker and more forbidding in the dying rays of the sun. The address the old crone had given proved to be a two-story, slightly leaning house of stucco and weathered lumber, its roof a rambling ruin of shellacked wooden shingles.
The girl was running out as he stalked in. Half-dressed in a light shift of Theskan silk, she was clutching a blanket over her bare shoulders. She was small and blonde, and her blue eyes were wide and full of tears. She halted upon seeing Rhodes, then sobbed and fled, her bare feet slapping the cobbles, the blanket trailing after her like a cape.
He found the other girl sitting on the second-floor landing. She was dusky-skinned and almond-eyed, with long, dark hair worn loose in ringlets. She also wore only a light shift as she sat with her knees up, clutching an overly brocaded pillow. She stared at the open doorway wordlessly, seeming dazed.
Was the king he’d come to slay some sort of devouring lusty lion who drove his partners to madness? Rhodes edged around the doorway to see a room in the disarray of passion. Discarded clothing of both sexes littered the room, cast over chairs, tall chests, and nightstands. The room was dominated by a single huge bed with an overstuffed straw tick. Its covering quilts lay thrown to one side. In the center of the bed, tangled in the cotton sheets, sprawled Warrior King Dhalmass, naked-and dead.
Rhodes Marliir carefully approached the bed, his hand on his dagger. The huge, muscular body of the king was already turning blue in its swath of sheets. The royal mouth gaped open in one last, endless battle cry, and the royal eyes stared unfocused at the ceiling. Rhodes touched the body with the back of his hand. It was cold and clammy. The last of the body’s heat had departed with the king’s fleeing life.
The young noble cursed. How dare Dhalmass die, here and now, before Rhodes had a chance for revenge!
There was a subtle change in the stifling air of the room, as if a window had been opened for a moment and then shut again. Rhodes realized he was no longer alone in the room with the dead king.
He turned. The new arrival was a broad-shouldered man whose large gut spilled over the top of his belt. He wore red and black robes of vivid hues and expensive make. A mage’s sigil in gold thread was embroidered over his heart. Rhodes did not know the symbol, but he knew who the man must be from Halfhand’s descriptions of the royal court. This was Jorunhast, Royal Magician of Cormyr.
Rhodes began to stammer that he’d found the king this way, but the wizard swept him aside with one arm and went to the bed. He touched the king at the neck, the breast, and the inside of the thigh. Then he cursed mildly and pulled a small book from his vest. He raised the book and muttered something in an alien tongue. Sparks of light danced around the pages and grew swiftly in brightness and number, to orbit the volume like the streaming stars in the skies over Faerun. The wizard laid the book on the king’s forehead.
The sparks danced, flared once, and then died. Dhalmass continued to lie there, blue and stiff. The wizard leaned on the bed with both fists, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He cursed again, longer and louder this time.
“That’s it, then,” said the wizard. “He’s well and truly dead. His mighty heart failed him, obviously in a moment of passion. Even the Book of Life could not bring him back this time.”
He turned his head to look at the young noble. “Were you here when it happened?”
“Me?” asked Rhodes, then shook his head. “I’ve only just arrived. He was, uh, entertaining.” The young Marliir pointed his chin at the open doorway. Beyond, the dusky-hued girl was watching everything with staring eyes.
“The only witness?” asked the wizard.
“There was another young lady,” said Rhodes. “She left suddenly.”
Jorunhast cursed again and looked hard at the noble. “And you were here with the girls?”
Rhodes straightened his shoulders and looked the wizard in the eye. “I am no panderer, mage. I am of the blood of House Marliir-one of the last, thanks to this man.”
“So you came here, poisoned blade in your sheath, seeking revenge,” said the wizard.
“I came seeking justice,” said Rhodes. “I regret that I was too late to mete it out.”
“Justice!” the old mage spat the word like a curse. “Is that what they call unthinking bloodlust these days?”
Rhodes Marliir’s eyes narrowed. “And how did you know where to find him?”
Jorunhast held up a hand. “I came bearing sad news. Her Highness Queen Jhalass has perished, apparently in an allergic reaction to some fish served at dinner. Like Dhalmass, no amount of herbcraft or priests’ magic could save her. Both of the rulers of Cormyr have perished within hours of each other. I fear for your city, Marliir.”
