“Ah,” the merchant said, leaning forward, “but what if I showed you a man just swimming in golden lions, eh?”
“I’d show you the next man to become your victim,” Tessara told him promptly, “but as you’re not likely to do any such thing, why don’t you introduce your friend-or is he just the dupe who paid for your tankard?”
“Well, yes,” Rhauligan admitted, sinking down behind his ale with a rueful smile and a wave of surrender. Amid general snorts and exclamations of mirth, he added, “But I’ll do as you bid… and do it proper, too. Know, Dauneth, that the lady with the sharp blade and sharper tongue is Tessara, now company-for-hire but once a pirate on the sea that roils past the very docks of Suzail.”
Tessara essayed a small, swaying bow and smile, without leaving the arms of the lean merchant, whom Rhauligan loudly introduced as Ithkur Onszibar, an independent long-haul caravan merchant from Amn hoping to find a business partner in Suzail to anchor the eastern end of his trade route. The man winced at this shrewd intelligence, whereupon the others in the Snout Room-save for the staring, disapproving table of priests and the silent, watchful mercenary-all roared with laughter.
Rhauligan made a mock bow of his own and identified the other two merchants as Gormon Turlstars, a dealer in blades and fine-tempered tools from Impiltur-the grim one-and Athalon Darvae, a textiles dealer from Saerloon who’d been thinking of moving to Suzail but was now having second thoughts. That observation brought as big a wince, and laugh, as Rhauligan’s daring sally about the caravan master. When the jovial merchant introduced Dauneth Marliir, however, there were a few whistles and the room-the entire room, Dauneth noted uncomfortably-grew silently attentive.
“In town to watch an old foe die?” Tessara asked boldly, but Rhauligan saw the sudden flush of crimson cross the face of his newfound companion, from ear to ear to fingertips, and made a swift interjection.
“Now, now. How can the lad be doing that when he’s but newly arrived in Suzail and doesn’t even know what’s going on? I’d like to hear the latest myself, O most masterful of gossips and spies!”
The room erupted in chatter as all four of Rhauligan’s acquaintances spoke at once. Dauneth thankfully covered his face with his tankard and thought about how good the Black Bottom ale was beginning to taste. The cacophony went on for some time, as none of the four, once started, had any intention of yielding to silence, but in the end it was the grim, stolid sword dealer who by dint of ponderous patience went on speaking after the others ran out of breath.
“… and the Royal Wizard continues to meet with every noble that he can pry out of the backwoods,” Turlstars concluded, his eyes rising suddenly to transfix Dauneth as if on a sword blade. The young noble almost choked on his ale.
As soon as he could safely speak, Dauneth filled the lengthening, expectant silence with the words, “Ah-no summons came to us from court that I know of, but several of my elders had been telling me for a season or more that it was high time I presented myself to the king, and I was told rather firmly about a month back that now was the time.”
“About a month back,” Darvae, the cloth merchant, echoed meaningfully, gesturing at Dauneth with his tankard.
Tessara snorted. “You see conspiracies and cabals under your trencher every evening, Athalon, and under your bed every morning, too!”
“You can get under his bed?” Rhauligan murmured. “This I must see!” The look Tessara gave him in return, amid the rising chuckles, had edges to it.
The caravan master Onszibar cleared his throat and said, “Athalon’s inference is, however, an interesting idea. Is this affliction of the Obarskyrs the result of a plan so wide-ranging that someone’s thought to drag all the young nobles of the realm here to Suzail to provide possible suspects for the attack on the royals?”
“Or to gather together nobles who are in on the plot,” Rhauligan put in eagerly, “without rivals, such as the other noble houses, noticing amid all the arrivals?”
“Or,” Tessara said softly, “to bring the nobles together so that rivals are within easy reach, so whoever’s behind this can more easily cut down foes and folk of families not in their favor?”
Caught in the center of a web of thoughtful glances, Dauneth felt suddenly that he was all too alone in a city of watching, waiting eyes where many blades were seeking his innards, rather than the exciting, bustling heart of the realm where one young Marliir in dusty boots was unknown and ignored. An unsettling view. He sighed and took another quaff from his tankard, hoping no one would see that his hands had started, ever so slightly, to tremble.
“But who has the wits to plan so deftly and bring Azoun to the edge of death and hold him there for so long?” Turlstars asked, bringing on a tense moment of silence that was ended-reluctantly-by the cloth merchant.
“Vangerdahast,” Darvae said, waving one of his sour-sweet fish tarts for emphasis, “and his war wizards.”
Rhauligan snorted. “If they wanted the throne,” he said flatly, “they could’ve had it years ago, without all this drama. A few quick spells and a mind link or a crowned puppet wearing the face of a tracelessly-disposed-of Obarskyr, and none of us the wiser. This feels like the work of someone who’s had to be very clever to avoid the war wizards.”
There were nods at this, but the caravan master said, “I can’t think our High Wizard’s behind this either, but he is the busiest man in the kingdom right now, flitting from one back room to another with scarce a stop for the chamberpot in between.”
More nods. “With most of the important nobles of the realm,” Tessara murmured.
Turlstars chuckled and waved at Dauneth with his tankard. “He’ll be getting to you soon, lad, just see if he doesn’t.”
“I’ll be pleased to assure him of my loyalty to the crown,” Dauneth said rather stiffly.
“Ah,” Tessara said, leaning forward in her chair to waggle a warning finger at him, her elbow on one knee, “but what if he comes to ask you to join in a task or two that leads to a new order in Cormyr?”
“A kingdom ruled by wizards?” Rhauligan said in disbelief. “The Sembians’d never stand for it. They’d hire every ambitious mageling they could find to smash such a realm!”
“Only to find their hirelings wiping out Vangerdahast’s lot and then taking their places! Wizards with power never wish to give up that power, be it magical or political.” The cloth merchant Darvae set down his own drink with a solid thunk to underscore his point.
“I’d not want to be a mage that tried any such thing,” Ithkur Onszibar said dryly, “in a world that holds the Red Wizards of Thay, the Zhentarim, and the mage kings of Halruaa. Once the mage realm is built, what’s to stop anyone with greater spells from taking it over from within?”
Turlstars waved a dismissive hand. “All this is hard-flying fancy, people. All we know is that Duke Bhereu has died, the king and Baron Thomdor linger near death despite wagonloads of priests and winged carpetfuls of war wizards laboring night and day, and our Royal Magician is trotting around meeting privately with various nobles, while all the younger sons of those same noble families, and all their elders who like to play at politics, converge on Suzail as if free dukedoms are being handed out at street corners.”
“As indeed they soon may be,” Athalon Darvae murmured.
Turlstars ignored the comment and continued. “Some folk think the wizard is just binding loyalties to the crown with threats and promises and making all the up-noses feel personally important. Others think he’s adding heads to his own little organization.”
“Or handing out orders to a cabal that’s long since established, and using the other little talks to hide that, or even to lay little tracing or thought-probing spells on the nobles who aren’t in his camp,” Tessara put in, with a meaningful nod of her head in Dauneth’s direction.