Erin Evans - Lesser Evils

A weight lifted off Farideh’s shoulders. “Oh, thank the gods.” She took the envelope. “Do you have any rooms left? We need …” She looked back at Lorcan and Brin, his hand still intertwined with Havilar’s. “Three, I suppose.”

“Two will do,” Lorcan said.

“Two’s all I have, so that’s good to hear.” He squinted at Lorcan. “Well, well. Where’d they pick you up?”

Farideh slid the coin across the counter, trying not to blush at what the innkeeper was thinking. “Cousin,” she blurted. “On … our mother’s side.”

“Ah,” the innkeeper said, clearly disbelieving. “Well, the two at the end of the hall.”

Farideh thanked him and took the envelope. “I guess Tam wasn’t exaggerating about the fuss.”

Brin peered at the seal, a blazon of dragon with a crown muzzling its jaws. His eyes widened. “Oh no. Crownsilvers.”

“Maybe they just lent him their paper,” Havilar said nervously.

Farideh cracked the glossy yellow wax and withdrew the thick parchment letter from its envelope. The fluid script of a practiced hand flowed across the page, dense with the detailed language of courts and officials and the sorts of people who set bounties, not earned them. Farideh squinted at the text, trying to sort the meaning out from the nonsense. Therefore the man identified as Mehen, being as he has entered Cormyrean soil …

“They wouldn’t,” Brin said urgently.

… the Crownsilvers’ claim being paramount against the established bounty …

“Well, maybe they’re telling you he’s on his way back,” Havilar said. “Maybe they’re saying thanks for returning Constancia.”

… and the complicating factors under consideration in the case of discreetness …

“Maybe it’s an invitation to join the dragonborn in their vacation home in the Feywild,” Lorcan said, caustically.

… until such time as reparations are made . Farideh’s stomach dropped. “Oh gods.”

“What,” Brin demanded, “does it say?”

“Mehen’s in prison,” Farideh said. “They think he kidnapped Brin.”

As much as Tam Zawad had disliked the spy they called the Fisher, he entered the Harper stronghold with a heavy heart. Dahl and several more Harpers out of Everlund whose names he would have to learn followed him through the tavern on the ground floor, up through the narrow, sooty hallways to Aron Vishter’s secret office.

In his arms, Tam carried a sullen bundle, wrapped in layers and layers of wool, and as they came to the door, he wondered if he’d made the right choice in bringing it. He would wonder over a lot of choices, he felt certain, in the years to come.

But not this one, he thought.

“Draw swords,” he ordered and pushed in.

The Fisher sat at his desk, his golden rings in a pile and a measure of whiskey before him. He looked up at Tam with a somber expression. “Well met, Shepherd. Too afraid to do this, just the two of us?”

“You owe them as much as you do me,” Tam said. “If not more.” A little digging had turned up a dozen missions turned sour, all run out of Waterdeep. All crossed with the Zhentarim. More than a few ending with dead Harpers. “Watching Gods, Fisher. Was this all for coin?”

“Coin,” the other spy said. “And the thrill of it.” The Fisher drained his whiskey. “I think you might have let me run for it, for old times’ sake. That’s why you brought these bravos. I think you knew you couldn’t trust yourself not to get soft for memory’s sake.”

Tam thought of Viridi, of the spymaster’s willingness to bend her rules for him when it came to Mira. And of what Viridi would have done-to Tam, to any of them-if their actions had ended with agents dead. “Viridi would have made certain she had every one of your secrets before you died,” he said, “whatever it took. So be glad I haven’t dwelt too long in memories of the past.

“Aron Vishter, you have betrayed your oaths and disgraced the cause of the Harpers. You are sentenced to death by hanging.” He signaled two of the Everlund Harpers-a half-elf man and a broad-shouldered Shou-to take hold of the spymaster. “But for the love of mercy, I hope you give us the names of your conspirators.”

The Fisher gave Tam a wry smile as the Harpers seized his arms and hauled him up out of the chair. “You won’t last long at this. Already told me you won’t make me talk.”

Tam shook his head. “I said be glad I’m not Viridi.” He handed the bundle containing the Book to the third Harper, a brunette woman. “Don’t touch it yourself,” he cautioned. “And lock it up tight in the vaults when he’s through.”

You will regret this , the Book’s voice said, as the armored Harper took hold of it.

“That I may.” He looked at the gaudy silver pin perched on his shoulder, a harp and a moon on a round shield. Another thing to get on Everlund about. There had to be a less obvious way to mark themselves to each other. They led the Fisher away into the more secret parts of the stronghold. Tam watched him go, mourning the loss of a comrade, the loss of the last connection to a life he still missed.

“Where will you start?” Dahl asked. The younger man stood over the Fisher’s desk, looking at the mess of documents.

“By purging the Fisher’s traitors,” Tam said. “Let us hope he is forthcoming. I don’t want a changeling hunt.” He looked over the cluttered office-he could clear it out while he waited for results. “And then … we need to start recruiting. Proper recruiting.” He looked over at the younger man. “I hope you’ll stay.”

Dahl gave a bitter laugh. “I have nowhere else to go.” He flipped through the papers on the Fisher’s former desk. “And I think I’d prefer the Harpers anyway. Especially if I’m not going to be sent rifling through antiquaries.”

“It would be a waste of your skills,” Tam agreed.

Dahl nodded absently, in the way Tam had come to realize meant he was saying thanks, but embarrassed to do so. “Did you consider,” Dahl asked, “recruiting … I mean, they’re young but … Farideh seems like she’d be a decent ally. Absent the devil.”

The girl was clever and quick, solving problems in the middle of everything falling apart as well as if she’d been put through the first years as the Red Knight’s own. Havilar’s glaive was, as they said, as good as her right hand and he would never need to ease Clanless Mehen’s true heir into the bloodier aspects of protecting the balance of Faerun. Even Brin, who was not cut out for the battlefield but was halfway to being able to lie to Cyric himself.

“I don’t think they’re ready,” Tam said. “Nor do I think the Harpers are truly ready for them.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Dahl looked down at the desk. “I suppose if she had been a Harper, we would both be facing a fair amount of trouble for what happened. Around the door. And such. It was awfully close to oath-breaking.”

Tam sighed. There are rules you bend, he thought, and rules to which you hold firm. “You both survived and came out better for it, I’d say. No need for tribunal. But I wouldn’t send you out together again, no.” He regarded the younger man more seriously. “And I hope to the gods you are never that self-indulgent again.”

“No.” Dahl pursed his lips. “Do you mind? I have an errand or two …”

“Of course,” Tam said. He followed him to the door. “When you get back I want a list from every available Harper of potential recruits. Anyone you know-from your past, from your present-who might make a proper agent. Think on it.”

“I will.” He stopped outside the door. “Have you any idea where Mira went?”

“No,” Tam said, and it was the truth. They’d no more than skirted the Shadovar before she and Maspero vanished in the night-not a note, not a word, not a fond farewell. She’d taken the spellbooks she’d rescued and left Tam the Book of Tarchamus. That, he supposed sadly, was her fond farewell.