She gave him a level look and said flatly, “No. I don’t believe I have.”
“It’s been a full tenday since Indar Crauldreth tried for them and failed. Are these Swords still looking for hired slayers around every corner and inside every shadow?”
“No,” the best of Varandrar’s spies replied. “They did for five or six nights, yes, but they’re young, and still think themselves nigh-invincible. Even the gravest of warnings fades fast at that age.”
“I remember,” Varandrar said. “My youth wasn’t all that many years ago, whitebeard!”
“Your words are heard and heeded, Lord,” Drathar replied.
Varandrar almost chuckled. Most Brotherhood mages he’d met were cruel, humorless men, only too eager to slay or maim underlings who so much as looked at them askance. They’d not have been able to coax a tenth of the loyalty out of any band of spies that Varandrar had managed to foster in his men.
For that reason, Varandrar, lacking the slightest ability to craft spells or even feel most magic, made money fist-over-gauntlet for the Zhentarim in Arabel, where wizards of higher rank and much higher opinions of themselves had met with swift disaster.
“Does anyone know who hired Crauldeth, anyhail?”
“No, Lord. Or rather, there are the usual twoscore wild rumors, none of them backed by much of anything.”
“And have the Swords crossed any of our men or doings?”
“No, Lord. The one called Florin-with the aid of the woman Islif Lurelake and the novice of Tymora, Doust Sulwood-is keeping them well-behaved and seeking work. Not that they’ve found any, yet. A few merchants need warehouses or their own bodies guarded, but they haven’t happened to meet with these adventurers yet. The Dragons are suspicious of them, of course, and the regular patrols are watching them, but the stalwarts have put only a few coin-hire lads to tailing the Swords thus far, rather than raising an alarm. They’re mindful of the fresh ink on the royal charter, I’d say; no one wants to be too quick to show the king he’s been a fool.”
Varandrar did chuckle, this time. “You say this Florin is keeping his fellow Swords in line; what then of the overbold thieving that drew your eye in the first place? Are these Swords learning caution, or-?”
“Ah. Aye. The lone exception to their good behavior is a lass hight Alura Durshavin, whom they call ‘Pennae.’ A thief of some daring, who’s thus far confined herself to emptying merchants’ bedchamber coffers and snatching the occasional haunch of roast boar, but seems to have an eye for larger and larger prizes as the days pass. So circumspect are the Swords that the Dragons haven’t yet connected them with the thefts-but if she goes on snatching like this, half Arabel is going to be looking for her, and when uproars start, outlanders tend to get blamed.”
“True. Well enough. It seems you have this well in hand, an-”
Varandrar stiffened, and as his speech faltered, his eyes momentarily rolled up in his head.
Drathar drew back in alarm, making the swift ‘Mask be with me’ gesture to ward off fell magic or peril-but by the time he’d done it, Varandrar had reeled and relaxed again, his eyes his own and his voice as steady as before.
“-and I’d caution you in only one matter: pay no attention to the Swords Agannor Wildsilver or Bey Freemantle. You are to watch only the others.”
In the bright depths of the scrying orb, the last of the spies could be seen filing out. Varandrar waved a friendly farewell to Drathar, who closed the door.
Leaving Varandrar alone again.
Horaundoon smiled and ended his spell.
The orb showed the Zhentarim trading lord reeling again, and looking bewildered.
Hmm. Not a mage at all, yet the man had a more sensitive mind than most. Merely withdrawing from it left him like that, hey?
Perhaps Horaundoon of the Zhentarim needed to recruit a dozen Varandrars of his own.
The figure came out of the night like a flitting shadow, landing on the moonlit roof of Rhalseer’s rooming house with the softest of footfalls.
Florin let her gain her balance and draw in a calming breath or two before he uncoiled himself from the shadow of the tumbledown wreck of Rhalseer’s cluster of aging chimneys.
Her knife came out in less time than it took her to hiss and back into a crouch, ready for battle.
“Pennae,” he said, “ ’tis me. Put the blade away; I mean no harm. I only want to talk.”
“You waited up here for me?”
“It seems so.”
“Why?”
“I very much need to know some things. Before ’tis too late, and the questions I’ll ask gently will be roared at you-at us all-by many furious Purple Dragons, as we hang in chains in the darkest cell they have.”
Pennae sighed. “You want to know all about my lurid past.”
“Just the jailings, and the crimes you’re still sought for. If any, of course. Oh, and what folk say about you. And where they say it: the realms, the cities…”
“Of my notoriety?” Pennae sounded amused. Sheathing her blade, she went to the three-board-wide walkway that crowned the peak of the roof, hard by the chimneys, and sat down, beckoning Florin to sit beside her.
He did, and they stared at each other in the moonlight for a breath or two, arms clasped around knees, elbows touching.
“I was born here,” Pennae said. “In Arabel, not all that many years ago.” She stretched then let her knees fall and stretched out on her back, bowed over the roofpeak with her hips closest to the stars. Florin turned onto his side so he could hear what she murmured next.
“My father I never knew. I gather he was here for but a season. A Purple Dragon of the garrison, who caught the eye of my mother: Maerthra Durshavin, not a bad pastry cook, but hard of hand, voice, and manner. She had few friends, drank much, and beat my bones raw until I fled. She’s dead these three winters, now.”
Pennae fell silent, stretching her lithe arms again, arching her shoulders-and wincing.
“Bruise there, that I knew not I had… anyhail, I made my own life. Ate what I could get, took all I could, hadn’t much to conquer Faerun with but my wits, my scampering, and my good balance and leaping about. Alone, always alone. Whenever I trusted someone else, they made me rue it soon enough.”
She let silence fall again.
“Ah, Pennae?” Florin’s voice was uncertain. “Have we Swords made you… rue trusting us?”
She sat up, managing to keep a flaring flame of amused satisfaction out of her eyes. Men were so predictable; so easily led by reins they didn’t even know they wore.
Nose to nose, she said huskily, “Not yet. I pray me: never.”
She let her voice become a desperate whisper. “Oh, Florin I am so tired of being alone.” She shaped the last words into a sob and opened her arms to him. When his lips timidly found hers, Pennae devoured them hungrily, rolling against him.
Yes, men were so predictable.
Her tongue entwined with Florin’s, Pennae glanced up at the stars overhead with eyes that smiled, and allowed herself one more prediction: there would be no more questions about her past this night.
Chapter 21
That’s the hard thing about life: things change. We hate it. We all hate it. Loved ones die. Friends drift away. Remember this: You can cling to nothing without harming it.
Ah, I’m afraid you’ve been sadly misled, Lady Greenmantle,” the elderly war wizard said. “These aren’t spell scrolls at all.”
He looked up from them, genuine sorrow in his eyes. Bleys Delaeyn was a kindly man, and it distressed him to think that someone had caused any upset to one of the kindest and most beautiful noblewomen he’d ever met. Still more that she’d been duped out of coins, and might well be angry with him for telling her so.
She’ll think I’ll rush back to my fellow Wizards of War to have a good laugh about her.