The king’s lord of Immerford kept from rolling his eyes only with firm effort. Gods, if they’d only sent their wives, instead …
“Well?” the boldest-Harklur, the vintner, as usual-snapped, “What’re you doing here?”
Durncaskyn quelled an inner sigh and gave the wine merchant a polite smile. As always, the same script. Dutifully, he said the words expected of him.
“This is, as it happens, my office,” he explained gently. “ ’Tis where I’m expected to be, much of my working time. So delegations of honored citizens such as yourselves know where to find me.”
“I mean,” Harklur snarled, “why are you still just sitting here, when honest Immerfolk-defenseless wives and daughters! — have been murdered in their beds by foul young lordlings bent on rape and pillage and … and bloodshed?” As he wound down, the vintner’s faltering words were bolstered by nods and supportive murmurs from the other six pillars of Immerford.
“King and court expect me to remain at my post,” Durncaskyn replied, “particularly in times of crisis. Which this most undoubtedly is, considering that before Constable Delloak brought me the terrible news from Irlingstar, I had three other major troubles to deal with, one of which you gentlesirs are all well aware of.”
“Never mind that!” Harklur snapped, only to be drowned out by two of his fellow burghers, both bursting out at once.
“My daughter’s best friend is dead, and I want to know just what-”
“Who’s keeping the peace up in Irlingstar, anyhail, and what’s to stop these foul murderers from just sweeping down our way, hey? I demand to know-”
My, but they were truly upset. Not one of them had bitten on his bait, and asked the details of those two troubles he’d told them they didn’t know about. Right, then; ’twas “treat with deserved respect” time.
Durncaskyn stood up, planting both hands on his littered desk-and then grandly swept his papers aside in both directions to whirl to the floor.
“Gentlesirs,” he barked, “I’m glad you came to see me. Your concern heartens me, as it would any true servant of Cormyr. Please come around my side of the desk, and behold this map with me.”
There were wordless murmurs of excitement and mollification as the burghers hastened to crowd around. Harklur and Mrauksoun still looked angry, but the rest were bright-eyed. Worked every time.
“Here we are in Immerford,” Durncaskyn told them, pointing but taking care not to plant his finger on it. They’d want to peer close, trying to pick out their own homes on those intricately drawn streets. “Right in the center of it all.”
He moved his pointing hand. “There’s Castle Irlingstar, hard by the frontier. Very difficult country between us, you’ll see. A determined man or a small band might struggle through, but if an army tried, we have a tenday’s warning, or even more.”
His hand moved again. “Now, over here, somewhere in these marshes, is an outlaw band that’s been butchering honest merchants on caravans traveling the East Way, and plundering their goods. The same caravans that bring trade to you, gentlesirs, that make it possible for all Immerfolk to feed themselves, to continue to live here and not become drudges in Sembia or dockhands in Suzail. We’ve been trying to quell word of just how many murders and robberies they’ve managed, because to foster rumor will be to harm Immerford’s future-your prosperity-far more than anything they’ve done, or are likely to do. We’re hunting them right now.”
He moved his pointing finger back to Immerford. “I’ve another little matter, right here at home. Someone who’s impersonating honest citizens long enough to inspect their outgoing shipments in the Longhand and Eskurlaede warehouses-just long enough to remove one or two smallish but valuable items, every time. Your shipments, gentlesirs, and your reputations and demands for repayment. I have to hunt down and stop that someone, before matters get much worse.”
His finger moved south along the East Way, to Hullack Forest. “And then there’s the little matter of the Owl Lord.”
“The what?”
“That’s what we want to know,” Durncaskyn replied smoothly. “A sorcerer, wizard, or perhaps warlock of power, who dwells in the Hullack and casts spells on folk traveling along the road nearby-especially if they camp for the night here, here, or here. He enspells them and worms one or two secrets out of them-magic they know the whereabouts of, or where their wealth is hidden or invested-something he can profit from. Soon thereafter, hired thieves exploit what he’s learned. We’ve only caught one, thus far, and he only knew he was working for a man in an owlhead mask and dark robes, who called himself the Owl Lord. I need to stop this danger before one of you becomes his next victim. ’Tis my duty, saers, to learn of such perils and to deal with them. At any time, dozens-scores-of Crown agents and informants, as well as vigilant upstanding citizens such as yourselves, are hastening here to report to me, so I can act. Just as you have done, here and now. So you see, saers, I have to be here.”
There was a moment of silence, wherein most of the burghers nodded, but Ergol Mrauksoun broke it. The hawk-nosed, energetic moneylender and landlord was still angry but controlling himself with visible effort. “I-we-Lord Durncaskyn, we are not mere dogs barking in the streets of Immerford! We are busy men, men with concerns that crowd us just as these crowd you, and-but-we’ve reached a point that-that-hrast it, this cannot go on, and we agreed to come here today to tell you so!”
“Yes,” Harklur interrupted, “to make it very clear-”
Mrauksoun glared his fellow burgher down, and seized the verbal podium again. “For us, these murders are it, my lord! We cannot accept things continuing like this! We demand you inform the king-not several score of faceless courtiers who can all safely forget they heard you, and do the same nothing they’ve been doing for years, but King Foril himself-that we are sick unto choking of ever-higher taxes without much to show for it save increasingly heavy-handed border patrols who almost daily stop and search any Immerman or maid departing town for smuggled goods, ever-higher local prices for … for everything, long waits for, well, anything at all-”
“Including Crown permissions!” put in raw-voiced Helmur Faerrad, Immerford’s jeweler and fine pastry maker.
Mrauksoun nodded. “Including Crown permissions-that have to come from Arabel or Suzail. We’re also increasingly dismayed at, shall we say, inadequate local protection provided for us by the Crown. These troubles you’ve just shown us are matters we knew little or nothing about! I’m speaking of the outlaws who’ve afflicted us for years. Why, Broadshield’s Beasts have been taking our sheep and goats for more seasons than I can call to mind, now, and growing ever bolder as the Dragons and all the king’s spies seem unable to even find or identify them, to say nothing of stopping them! Why, they’re even snatching oxen, now! Oxen, out of drovers’ sheds and stables! What we-what all Immerford-wants to know is: what are you going to do about it?”
Before Durncaskyn could make any reply at all, the shortest of the burghers, the gnome wheelwright Askalan Larcloaks, pushed through the taller humans and growled, “Lord Durncaskyn, listen ye welclass="underline" Our continued loyalty to King Foril Obarskyr turns on this. On just how well you and yer Crown officers handle the investigation of these killings at Irlingstar-including how you and yours treat Immerfolk as they investigate. Not just the cooks and kitchen maids and porters were from here, mind! There are good-and popular-Immerfolk shut up in that castle! The young Lords Cornyn Risingbroke and Yarland Amflame were locked away there for no more than saying a few foolish things about the Crown, and trying to forge trade alliances in Sembia without bothering to tell some nosy palace clerks what they were up to!”