Elaine Cunningham: Realms of Mystery

“I answer to my Lord Eskult,” the old man said shortly, “not to you.”

Lord Jalanus drew himself up, eyes glittering. His nose quivered with embottled fury, and he fairly spat out the words, “Do you know who I am, puling worm?”

The head gardener spat thoughtfully down into the rushes at their feet, shifted his chew to the other cheek, and said contemptuously, “Aye, the sort of miserable excuse for a war wizard that’s all Cormyr can muster from the younglings these days. You’d not have been allowed across the threshold of the Royal Court in my day. I guarded those doors for the good of the realm-and turned back from them far, far better men than you.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, leaving the Lord Justice snarling with incoherent rage in his wake.

“Clap that man in chains!” Jalanus Westerbotham howled, as soon as he could master words again. Two Purple Dragons started obediently away from their stations along the walls-only to come to uncertain halts as the stout merchant, moving with apparent laziness, somehow got to the doorway and filled it…with one hand on the hilt of a blade that looked well-used and sturdy, and which hadn’t been in evidence before.

“The Lord spoke in empty hyperbole,” Rhauligan told the armsmen, “not meaning you to take his words literally. He knows very well that imprisoning a veteran of the Purple Dragons-and a close friend of the king at that, from the days when Azoun was a boy prince- merely for insisting that he be questioned with due courtesy, would be excessive. When word of such a serious lack of judgment reached the ears of Vangerdahast, even a Scepter of Justice would have to be hasty in his explanations…and no such haste would save him, if the King learned of the matter. After all, what is more valuable to the realm than a loyal, long-serving Purple Dragon? You’d know that better than most, goodmen, eh?”

The two Purple Dragons nodded. One was almost smiling as they turned slowly to look back at their quivering superior. His hands were white as he gripped the back of the chair he was standing behind, and murmured in a voice as hard and cold as a drawn blade, “Goodman Rhauligan is correct. I spoke in hyperbole.”

Wordlessly the guards nodded and returned to their places along the walls. The Lord Justice glared down at several sheets of parchment on the table for a moment, his gaze scorching, and then snapped, “Bring in the master cellarer. Alone.” He lifted his head and favored Rhauligan with a look that promised the merchant a slow, lingering death, sometime soon.

The turret vendor gave him a cheery smile. “It takes a strong, exceptional man to endure the strain of keeping up these truth-reading spells. You do us all proud, Lord Jalanus. I can well see why Vangey named you a Scepter of Justice.”

“Oh, be silent,” the war wizard said in disgust. “Have done with this mockery.”

“No, I mean what I say!” Rhauligan protested. “Have you not learned all you needed to from yon gardener, even though he thinks he told you nothing? Hard work, that is, and ably done. Vangey missed telling you just one thing: never use the commands ‘Clap that man in chains!’ or ‘Flog that wench!’ They don’t work, d’you see? That failure goes a resounding double with the younger generation-you know, the one the gardener thinks you’re part of!”

Jalanus waved a weary hand in acceptance and his missal as a disturbance at the door heralded the arrival of the master cellarer. The man had the look of an old and scared rabbit. Four grinning guards towered around him, obviously enjoying the man’s shrinking terror, and the war wizard looked at them and then at Rhauligan. The Lord Justice cleared his throat and asked in a gentle voice, “Renster, is it not? Please, sit down, and be at ease. No one is accusing you of any wrongdoing…”

The stout merchant leaned back against the wall and nodded in satisfaction. Perhaps war wizards could learn things, after all.

Rhauligan slipped out of the interviewing chamber as the twelfth guest-the castellan of the vaults, a surly, stout little man-was being ushered in. The merchant could feel the satisfied glare of the Lord Justice between his shoulder blades as he slipped through the doorway, trotted past a suspicious guard, and fell into step beside the war wizard’s eleventh “guest”: the clerk of the estate.

The clerk-young and sunken-eyed, his face etched with fear and utter weariness-spared his new escort one glance and muttered, “I suppose the real questions begin now, is that it? After that strutting peacock has worn me down?”

“It’s our usual procedure,” Rhauligan confided reassuringly, man to man. “We have to give wizards something to do, or they’re apt to get up to mischief-creating new monsters, blowing up thrones; that sort of thing. The problem is, there isn’t much they’re fit to do, so…“ He gestured back down the passage; the clerk smiled thinly and turned away, down a side hall. Rhauligan hastened to follow. “Where are Lord Eskult’s personal papers kept?”

“His will, d’you mean?” the clerk asked dismissively. “The seneschal fetched that even before Lord High-And- Mighty got here. The three visiting lords wanted to…”

“Yes, yes,” Rhauligan agreed, “but where did he fetch it from?”

The clerk stopped and gave the turret vendor a curious look. “If it’s all that gold you’re after,” he said, “forget about it. The castellan has it hid down in the vaults, somehow so arcane that to reach it three guards all have to attend him, each carrying some secret part of a key or other.”

“It’s not the gold,” Rhauligan said. “It’s the trading agreements, the ledgers, the tax scrolls-all that. Your work.”

The clerk gave him a hard stare, and then shrugged. “Too dry for most to care about, but as you seem to be one of those touched-wits exceptions, they’re all in an office just along here.”

“You have a key, of course. Who else does?”

“Why, the Lord-or did; it was around his neck when I saw him laid out. Then, look, so does the head maid, the seneschal of course, the back chambermaid-it was hers to clean, y’see-and the Crown has a key that the tax scrutineers use when they come.”

“I,” Rhauligan told him, “am a tax scrutineer. Here, I carry a royal writ; examine it, pray.” Reaching into his shirtfront, he drew forth a rather crumpled parchment, from which a heavy royal seal dangled. The clerk rolled his eyes and waved it away-even before the three plat- mum pieces folded into it slid out, falling straight into the man’s palm.

“I’ve come to Taverton Hall,” Rhauligan said smoothly, as the man juggled the coins in astonishment, “without that key. I need to see those papers-now-in utmost secrecy.” The clerk came to a stop in the corridor and squinted at the merchant, almost seeming excited.

“That meaning if I tell no one I let you in here, you’ll say the same?” he asked, peering up and down the pas sage as if he expected masked men with swirling cloaks and daggers to bound out of every door and corner in an instant.

“Precisely,” Rhauligan murmured. No masked men appeared. Satisfied, the clerk flashed a smile, shook a ring of keys out of his sleeve, and unlocked the nearest door with only the faintest of rattles. Then he was off down the corridor, strolling along in an apparent half-doze as if strange merchants and unlocking doors were far from his mind.

Rhauligan eased the door wide, held up a coin, and muttered a word over it. A soft glow was born along its edges, brightening into a little blue-white beam, like errant moonlight. The merchant turned the coin to light up the tiny office beyond, seeking traps.

After a long scrutiny, Rhauligan was satisfied no lurking slayer or death-trap awaited him. There was, however, a full oil-lamp, a striker, and a bolt on the inside of the door. Perfect.