The Best of the Realms, Book II

THE GRINNING GHOST OF TAVERTON HALL

The ghost is one of the family, you see. The Doom of the Paertrovers. We couldn’t banish him if we wanted to.”

The young lord was in full fettle, his voice as polished as that of any master bard. Immult Greiryn, the seneschal of Taverton Hall, ran an irritated hand through his steel-gray hair and turned away, melting into the deep underbrush with practiced ease and silence. Not for him the fripperies of the high and mighty, nor was it his station to be seen listening or intruding when they were at play. Bad enough that he had to step around their bodyguards behind every second tree and bush.

It was late in the warm summer of the Year of the Banner, and a busy summer it’d been, to be sure. All sun-dappled season long three ambitious noble lords of rising power had dragged their beautiful daughters the length and breadth of the realm, seeking suitable—that would mean rich, Greiryn reflected with a sour smile—husbands for their precious Flowers of Northbank. Farrowbrace, Huntingdown, and Battlebar. Oh, the three ladies were a delight to look upon, even for an old soldier, and well-educated to boot, but their whole journeying was so… calculated. Did these noble lords have iced wine in their veins, instead of blood?

Immult spat thoughtfully onto a fern and traded cold and level gazes with yet another bodyguard whose gloved fingers were fondling the hilt of his dagger. Arrogant lapdogs, lording it over him in a garden that was his to defend!

Arrogant? Aye, and their masters were worse. In their foray up and down the realm, presenting their young ladies to the eligible young noblemen of Cormyr, they’d passed the gates of Taverton Hall thrice. At least. More times, perhaps. Oldest and smallest of the great estates in Northbank this might be, but these three oh-so-noble lords must have been saving it for last, like a favored food at a feast. Taverton Hall was the seat of Lord Eskult Paertrover, Baron of Starwater and Horse Marshal to the Crown of Cormyr, bluest of the old blood houses to currently hold important court rank. Any lass who wed his son and heir, young Lord Crimmon, would gain her father an important ear at court.

Oh, yes, a very important ear. Doddering and lost in nostalgic glories Lord Eskult might well be, but his hand wrote the orders that conferred court ranks—and monies and powers with them—upon nobles, and assigned other nobles standing garrisons of Purple Dragons. Soldiers one had to feed and that were always, so the suspicions went, in your home to keep an eye on you for the Crown. So one lot of nobles gained wealth and power and another saw their purses go flat under the weight of a lot of hungry, swaggering soldiers. Yes, there were many nobles who made a point of being “old friends” of Lord Eskult. Many a case of fine wine came in through the gates at feast days. Immult licked his lips at the memory of a particularly fiery sherry from a Rowanmantle winehall.

Another guard glared at him suspiciously, but the seneschal swept past him, pretending not to notice. Bah! Let these dogs snarl. They’d all be gone from here soon enough.

“Yet,” Lord Crimmon said earnestly, knowing he had their breathless attention, “the ghost always reappears.” He gave them a suitably ghostly half-smile, and broke his pose to gesture grandly at a rather crumbling expanse of old, close-fitted stones. The rings on his fingers sparkled like miniature stars as the warm light of morning caught them and set them afire.

“Here, ‘tis seen as a shape on the wall, no matter how often Paertrovers tear down these stones and rebuild with new ones.” He waved his glittering hand again, in a wide circle above his head, three pairs of beautiful eyes following his every move. “Everywhere else on the estate, folk see a floating, grinning face in a long-plumed helm.” He gave them the smile again, knowing just how dashingly handsome—and rich—he looked. “It quite put my father off courting in these gardens.”

“And has it had the same effect on you, Lord Crimmon?” Lady Shamril Farrowbrace’s voice was a low, throaty purr. Her large, dark eyes held his with a look that was more promise than challenge, as one of her slim hands played in apparent idleness with the glistening string of silver-set pearls that adorned her open bodice.

“Lady,” the young lord told her in mock reproof, “that would be telling rather more than it is good for the nobly bred to know.”

One elegant eyebrow arched on the brow of another of the three Flowers. “Because it ruins the game, Lord?” the Lady Lathdue Huntingdown asked. “Do you seek to slight our sport, or just that of our over-reaching sires?”

Lady Chalass Battlebar stiffened, eyes flashing for a moment as she gathered herself to take proper offense. Her head snapped around to see just where her father was and found that he and the other elder lords had strolled out of sight, their bodyguards drifting off in their wake. The remaining guards had carefully situated themselves just out of earshot of normal converse, but quite within hailing distance. She relaxed, turned back to face Lord Crimmon—he was an engaging rogue, not the thickskull or dribblechin one might expect to find as heir of an old-blood house—and smiled.

“For my part,” she told them all lightly, “I care not if my lord father dies of old age snooping behind every stone in Cormyr for a ‘suitable’ mate for me. I have no interest in courtship at all this fine summer. Dalliance, now …” She lowered her lashes delicately as she put the tip of one slender, long-nailed finger to her lips and licked it with slow languor.

“Oh, Challa, a little subtlety, please,” the Lady Shamril sighed. “There’ll be plenty of time for thrusting ourselves at our gracious host here—and his father or yours, for that matter—when the dancing begins. I was enjoying the tale. ‘Tis a change from gallant young lords showing us their prized stallions and making clumsy, leering jokes about riding, and wanting to see our saddles, and all the rest of it.”

She waved a disgusted hand and all three Flowers tittered together at shared memories that were obviously strong enough to dash away the irritation that had flashed across the face of Lady Chalass under Shamril’s chiding.

“Yes,” Lady Lathdue Huntingdown agreed, leaning forward in real eagerness rather than with the slower flourish she’d performed earlier to best display her jeweled pectoral. “Our fathers may be after an ear at court and the warehouses of Paertrover gold, but we—I think I can safely speak for all of us in this—are not hunting husbands. Yet.”

She caught the eyes of both other ladies, saw their agreement, and confirmed it with a nod that set her splendid fall of hair rippling along her shoulders—then abruptly dropped courtly manners to address Lord Crimmon plainly. “Crimmon, tell us more of your ‘grinning ghost.’ I love a good scare.”

The young lord shrugged, suddenly weary of showing off the family haunting like some sort of trophy of the Hall. “There’s little more to tell. I don’t make up stories about him just to impress.”

“We’ve come a long way, Lord,” the Lady Shamril purred. “Impress us just a little… please?”

“Will we see the Grinning Ghost?” Lady Lathdue asked directly, her eyes very large and dark. She leaned forward even farther, so like a hound eager for the hunt that Lord Crimmon had to smile.

Into the spirit of it once more—if that was not too dangerous an expression, given the subject—he leaned forward to almost touch noses with her, the sparkle back in his eyes, and half whispered, “So if you’re anywhere about our grounds, and feel a gaze upon you, turn around. As like as not, you’ll be staring into the twinkling eyes of the ghost, who’s been floating along right behind you!”

Two of the Flowers gave little embarrassed cries of fright. The third—Lathdue—uttered not a sound, but Crimmon saw a shiver travel the length of her shapely shoulders and arms. Her dark eyes never left his as he lowered his voice again and went on.

“He never says a word and does nothing but follow folk who scream and flee.” The young noble made a grand gesture, as if thrusting desperately with a sword. “Some have dared to attack him or charge straight through him. All such say they felt a terrible chill… and got a true fright when the smile ran off the ghost’s face like a cloak falling from someone’s shoulders.

Lord Crimmon left time for another chorus of delicious moans of fear, and added more soberly, “When he’s watching you but not grinning, they say ‘tis a sign you stand in mortal danger.”

The three ladies laughed lightly in dismissal of such a ridiculous notion—how could a spirit know the fates and troubles of the living?—but their host did not join in their mirth, and it died away weakly as they looked into his face.

The gray Paertrover eyes that had seemed so dancing but a moment before were dark and level as they stared past the Flowers at something that was making the color slowly

drain out of Lord Crimmon’s face. The three ladies spun around … and joined in the deepening silence.

Floating behind them, perhaps three paces away, was a disembodied head, its face pinched and white and the plumes of the long helm that surrounded it playing about slightly in the breeze. Its eyes were fixed on Lord Crimmon’s and its face was expressionless. And yet, for all that lack of expression, somehow sad and grim. All at once it began to fade away, becoming a faint part of the sun-dappled light, then a gentle radiance among shadows… and then nothing at all.

Silent servants deftly lit the lanterns as the evening shadows lengthened and the nobles rose from their joyous feast, goblets in hand, to stroll in the gardens. Lord Eskult was in rare good humor, his wit as sharp as it had been twenty years past, and so were his guests, brightened by good food, fine wine, and the success of their trade-talks. Even if their does ran with no Paertrover stag, it seemed they’d won a firm friend in the old Horse Marshal.

” ‘Stroardinary!” Lord Belophar Battlebar boomed, the force of his breath blowing his great moustache out from his full lips. “A maze, but only knee-high. And sunken, too!”

“The pride of my dear departed wife,” Lord Eskult said, striding forth down its grassy entrance path with a gesture that told all Cormyr that he was proud of it too. “She wanted a maze like—no, better-than one she saw at some merchant’s house in Selgaunt, but she never wanted to get lost in it. One evening the light fell fast, and she couldn’t find her way out before it was full dark. Well, she had a proper fright, and when she found some of the lamp-lads she marched straight out to the garden sheds and took up a scythe, panting and blowing out her nostrils like a charger after a good gallop, and set to work hewing. She fell asleep sometime before dawn and I carried her in, bidding the morning servants to continue what she’d begun: cutting the highthorn down to the height you see it now. No one will ever get lost in Maeraedithe’s Maze again!”

“Gods above,” Lord Hornsar Farrowbrace exclaimed admiringly, “what a tale! What a woman! I can just see her, eyes afire—”

“Yes” their host said, spinning around, “They were. They were indeed! Oh, she was splendid!”

Trailing along somewhere in the shadow of the tall and patrician Lord Corgrast Huntingdown, his daughter, the Lady Lathdue, rolled her eyes unto the darkening heavens. Lord Crimmon patted her arm and grinned. She realized who was reassuring her and gasped in horror at having slighted his dead mother, even unintentionally—but he waved in merry dismissiveness as they all strolled on into the maze together.

The twisting coil of stunted highthorn entirely filled a sunken square of rich green turf surrounded on all sides by a rising slope of flowers crowned by fruit trees. Behind the trees was a stone wall, pierced in the center of each of its four runs by a stair leading down into the maze. Benches and statues stood here and there among the flowers, some of them already adorned with lamps, but there were none in the maze itself. “This is beautiful,” Lady Chalass Battlebar murmured. “Did you ever play here, Crimmon?”

There was no reply. She turned to see what might be preventing him from speaking, only to see him a good twenty paces off, taking a goblet and decanter from a gleaming tray carried by a servant. “He moves swiftly when he wants to,” Lady Shamril commented to Chalass.

“Hmmph,” she replied, “not as swiftly as I want to.” With a nod of her head she indicated the four older nobles in front of them.

“Well, if I ran Cormyr—” Lord Farrowbrace was saying, apparently unconscious of the fact that the nobility of the realm uttered that phrase even more often than the gently born, a rung down the social ladder, discussed the weather. Lord Huntingdown and their host were both interrupting him, gesturing airily with flagons almost as big as their heads, to illustrate how, begging his indulgence, they’d be like to run Cormyr just a tad differently, thus and so…

“Gods,” Shamril muttered, “let’s get gone! They’ll start talking about which noble houses will rise and which will fall when a new king takes the throne, next.”

“That brings to mind the solemn question upon which the future of fair Cormyr stands,” Lord Battlebar boomed. “Who among us shall rise and who fall, if Azoun—gods preserve and keep our king—should die tomorrow?”

The three Flowers groaned in unison as Shamril spread her hands in a disgusted “I told you so” gesture. “Shall we be off after Crimmon?” she hissed. “They’ll be at this all night, given wine enough! I—”

“No,” Lady Lathdue said with a dangerous smile, laying a hand on Shamril’s arm. “No running away now! We’ve a wager, remember? I want to see our fathers’ faces when we make a play not for Crimmon, but for his father! Where will they look? After all, the Baron as son-in-law—albeit one old enough to sire them—gives them more power at court and a shorter wait for the gold, if they can bend him into parting with coins before Crimmon does, or the grave takes him!”

“The wager was for the most daring way to steal a kiss from old Eskult,” Chalass reminded her with a frown. “I don’t want to cross my father! He’ll flail half the flesh off my behind if I disgr…—”

“In front of our fathers is the most daring way!” Shamril said with sudden enthusiasm. “Ladies, watch me!” She strode away through the maze, catching up her gown to unconcernedly step over walls of highthorn and catch up with the four lords. Chalass and Lathdue stared at her progress with mingled apprehension, awe, and delight.

“She’s going to do it,” Lathdue said in low tones, as if pronouncing doom fast coming down upon them all. “0, gods above.”

It was coming down to full night now, but the lamps gave light enough to clearly show what befell at the heart of the maze. They saw Shamril glide past Battlebar and her own father, duck under Lord Huntingdown’s arm—Lathdue erupted in swiftly smothered giggles at the look of horrified astonishment on her father’s face at the sudden, bobbing appearance of a young lady clad in a very scanty green silk gown from under his own languidly waving arm —and come up to Lord Eskult Paertrover.

The Baron of Starwater chuckled at whatever Shamril said then, and proffered his arm with exaggerated gallantry. Rather than surrendering her own arm, the young Lady Shamril spun past the old lord’s hand to press herself against him, lace-cloaked breast to medal-adorned chest and thigh to thigh. Lord Eskult looked surprised, but pleasantly so. His teeth flashed in a smile as she raised her lips, obviously demanding a kiss, and he bent over her as if he were a young brightblade and not an old and red-faced baron of the realm.

Chalass bit her knuckle to keep from screaming in delight as Shamril stretched her white throat a trembling inch or two farther, ignoring a startled oath from her father. Lathdue shook her head, murmuring, “Crimmon should be watching this! His father’s got more than a bit of the old fire in his veins yet, I—”

A sharp snapping sound echoed through the soft evening air, followed by the vicious hum of a crossbow bolt snarling through the air toward the two trembling bodies. It seemed to leap out of the gloomy air like a bolt of black lightning, stabbing between old lord and young, playful lady.

Blood burst forth in a sudden, wet torrent as the bolt took Shamril through the throat. Hair danced as her head spun around with a horrible loose wobble. The Flower of House Farrowbrace made a bubbling sound—the last sound she’d ever utter—as the bolt hummed on across the garden, plucking her out of the old lord’s grasp to fall sprawled across the highthorn, a limp and bloody bundle.

Eskult stared at his own empty hands for an instant, blinded by the bright blood that was fountaining everywhere—then clutched at his chest, made a sound that was half roar and half sob, and toppled slowly, like a felled tree, to crash down on his face in the highthorn.

There was an instant of shocked and disbelieving stillness before the shouts and screams began. With one accord, everyone present turned to stare at where the bolt must have been fired from—and the shouts were cut off as if by a sword. Stunned silence returned.

A head could be seen above the weaponless, otherwise deserted stretch of garden wall they were all staring at. It looked for all the world as if it had just risen up from behind the wall to peer at the carnage below in grinning satisfaction. Teeth flashed white and fierce in its chalk-white face, luminous beneath the dark helm it wore. The Grinning Ghost of Taverton Hall was smiling again.

It grinned at them over the garden wall for the space of two of Lathdue’s long and quivering breaths before it abruptly sank from view behind the wall. As if that had been a signal, folk stirred all around the sunken garden. There was a ragged roar, then servants and bodyguards were sprinting toward the wall, swords and belt-knives out. Even Lord Battlebar, down in the maze, plucked at his own knife and crashed across the highthorn in a lumbering run.

Chalass and Lathdue, white-faced, could only stare in silent horror. However fierce and grim the pursuit was now, as men converged on the garden wall in a frantic rush, it was too late for Shamril. Her daring was stilled forever. It might well also be too late for Lord Eskult Paertrover.

Chalass sagged soundlessly to her knees, staring at the two bodies as servants hurried to kneel over them, but Lathdue sobbed suddenly and loudly, and spun around to sprint after the rushing bodyguards. That crossbow had been fired from just where they’d seen the ghost.

Panting, she charged up the stair from the sunken garden and turned at its head, almost falling in her haste. A hand in livery caught her arm to steady her, and she swallowed, gasped for breath, and fell silent again.

There was no sign of the Grinning Ghost of Taverton Hall. A grim ring of men with drawn steel in their hands stood around the spot where the crossbow had been fired. It dangled, string loose, in the hands of Lord Crimmon Paertrover. His sword glittered in his other hand, beneath a face that was white and empty. His eyes stared past Lathdue, unseeing.

“Everyone I love … taken from me,” he blurted—and fell forward on his face, even faster than the rough hands that snatched away his blade and caught at his arms. As half Faerun rushed down on the voune lord. Lathdue felt a deener darkness than night rise up around her and close its merciful grasp over her eyes.

* * * * *

“Any man may say he has business with Lord Paertrover. To gain entry here, many a beggar and old soldier has said as much. His friend and secret business partner you may be, too—but I know you not.”

The old seneschal’s voice was cold and his stare was as wintry as a blizzard howling across the Stonelands, but the man across the table from him smiled with easy affability and replied, “Neither do I know you, goodman, but has that ever been a barrier between men of goodwill? You have the look of a retired Purple Dragon, and I respect all who’ve fought to keep our fair land safe. Might I know your name?”

“Greiryn,” the bristle-browed man on the far side of the table said shortly. “Seneschal of Taverton Hall.”

The stout man with the shaggy sideburns bounded from his seat to stretch a welcoming hand across the tabletop, for all the world as if he were the host, and not the visitor. “Glarasteer Rhauligan, dealer in turret tops and spires,” he boomed. “No embattlement too small, no embrasure too large, no crenellation too eccentric. If you can draw it, I can build it! I’ve come from bustling Suzail itself, turning my back on insistent barons and eager knights alike, to keep my appointment with the Lord Eskult Paertrover.” He gestured imperiously with the hand that Greiryn had been ignoring and added firmly, “I do have an appointment.”

“Saw you the black banner?” the seneschal asked in grim and reluctant tones. Rhauligan shrugged in a “no, but what of it?” gesture, and Greiryn said icily, “My Lord lies dead in the family crypt, of heartstop, and won’t be seeing anyone. Good day to you, merchant.”

The fat man in silks and furs made another imperious gesture, more hastily this time. “His son, then,” Rhauligan said eagerly, “the young blade who makes half the ladies in Cormyr swoon and the rest sigh! He’ll be Lord Paertrover now, right?”

“If he lives to take any title,” Greiryn replied in tones of doom that were almost drowned out by the sudden blare of a hunting horn sounding from the gates.

He rose at the sound, reaching for his cloak. “You must excuse me—that will be a Wizard of War, sent from Suzail to see to Lord Crimmon’s fate.”

* * * * *

The royal arms gleamed on the door of the coach even through the swirling road dust. Rhauligan counted no less than sixteen black horses in its harness, stamping and tossing their heads impatiently as that regal door opened and a man in stylish robes of lush purple alighted.

The servant with the hunting horn blew a too loud, wandering-note flourish, and the newcomer didn’t trouble to hide his wince and frown. He extended his left hand in a fist, displaying a ring to the already-bowing seneschal, and snapped his fingers.

In answer to this signal, a servant still hastening out of the coach proclaimed grandly, “All hail and make welcome Lord Jalanus Westerbotham, Scepter of Justice, Dragonfang Lord Investigator for Northbank, Starwater, and the Western Coast!”

The figure in purple inclined his head in coldly distant greeting to the three noble lords, swept past them and their daughters, ignored Rhauligan and a hastily-arrayed lineup of household servants, and strode toward the pillared entry of Taverton Hall. The seneschal practically sprinted to catch up with him, holding his ceremonial sword at one hip. Rhauligan gave Greiryn a cheerful grin as he puffed past and was rewarded with a fierce scowl.

“Lord Jalanus!” the seneschal gasped, trying to smile, “be welcome indeed in Taverton Hall. A sad occasion calls you here, but I’m sure that your stay nee—”

“Where, man, are my quarters? ” the War Wizard demanded in tones that Rhauligan promptly—and privately—dubbed “coldly patrician.”

“Ah, we’ve prepared the Ducal Suite for you, milord,”

Greiryn said, waving a hand down the central hallway. “It’s just ahead there; that door where the servants are waiting.”

“I must see to its suitability, and theirs,” Lord Jalanus said in a voice that managed to combine equal parts irritation at having to deal with dunderheads and gloomy anticipation of personal hardship and disappointment to come. He drew a slim, shiny black wand from his belt with a flourish, and marched off down the hall.

His servants streamed after him, pushing past Glarasteer Rhauligan on both sides. The merchant staggered first to the left then to the right under their bruising impacts, then shrugged and thrust out his foot, sending a heavily-laden servant crashing on to his face. Deftly he snatched up two carrychests from the chaos that had been the servant’s high-stacked load, and joined the general rush down the hall. A ragged shout followed him, and as he turned to enter the Ducal Suite, an angry hand plucked at his sleeve.

“Hey, now, you—”

“Come, come, man,” Rhauligan said grandly, “make yourself useful. Lord Wetterbottom seems to have brought no end of clobber with him up the short road from Suzail. Stir yourself to carry some of it, as I have!”

“You—”

Greiryn’s face swung into view, lit with fury, and over his shoulder looked Lord Jalanus, boredom and withering scorn now vying for supremacy on his features.

“Merchant!” the seneschal snapped, “surrender those chests at once! I’ll have you thrown out of the Hall—with coachwhips!—if you aren’t gone by the time our esteemed guest is settled! Do you hear?”

“Along with everyone in southern Cormyr,” Rhauligan murmured mildly, extending his arms and dropping both chests on the highly-polished toes of Greiryn’s best boots. “But to hear, I fear, is not always to obey.”

“It is among servants at court,” the War Wizard sneered as Immult Greiryn uttered a strangled shriek, bending over to clutch at his toes.

Rhauligan gave him a broad smile. “That’s not what

Vangey—oh, the Lord Vangerdahast to you, no doubt—is always complaining to me. Why, ”

“Guards!” roared the seneschal, face creased in pain. “Arrest this man! He—”

“Will go quite quietly, once this is all settled and I can keep my appointment with the surviving Lord Paertrover,” Rhauligan said, stepping swiftly back against a wall as the heavy clump of hastening boots rang down the hallway. “I must be present when Wetterbottom here listens to all the evidence and goes with his spells to interro—er, interview my future client.”

“Oh?” The War Wizard put out an imperious hand to silence Greiryn and push him aside, and his tones were silky as he advanced to face the stout merchant nose to nose, bringing his other hand up with slow menace to show the entire hallway of staring guards and servants the ornate and heavy rings that gleamed and glittered on his fingers. “By what bold right, man, do you make such insistence?”

Glarasteer Rhauligan smiled easily and reached into the open front of his loose shirt.

“Before you do anything rash,” Lord Jalanus added quickly, “I must remind you that there are laws in fair Cormyr, and that I, ‘Wetterbottom’ or not, am sworn to uphold them. I need no court to mete out final—fatal—justice.” One of the rings he wore flashed once, warningly.

“Your slumbers must be troubled,” Rhauligan replied in tones of gentle pity as he slowly drew forth something small and silver on a chain, holding it cupped in his hand for only the wizard and Greiryn to see. It was a rounded, silver harp: the badge of a Harper. “I have also come here from Suzail,” the merchant told them softly, and leaned forward to add in a very loud whisper, “and I was sent by someone very highly placed in court.”

The War Wizard’s eyes flickered and he spun around with an angry flourish. “Admit him to my investigations,” he snapped at the seneschal—then wheeled around again to add curtly to Rhauligan, “Cross not my authority in the smallest way. Your presence I’ll grant, but you are to be silent and refrain from meddling. Understand?”

Rhauligan spread his hands. “Your words are clarity and simplicity itself.”

Lord Jalanus glared at him for a long moment, sensed nothing more was forthcoming, and turned on his heel again without another word. The merchant favored his retreating back with a florid court bow that made one of the servants snigger. Greiryn’s head snapped up to glare, but the culprit, whoever it was, lurked somewhere in the stonefaced ranks of the wizard’s own servants, not the folk of the Hall.

Rhauligan smiled fondly at him. “As Lord Wetterbottom seems to need the entire Ducal Suite, could you open the Royal Rooms for me? Hmmm?”

The seneschal’s hands came up like trembling claws, reaching for Rhauligan’s throat, before more prudent thought stilled them. More anonymous titters were heard, and this time, some of them came from the servants of the Hall.

“The day,” Rhauligan remarked to the world at large as he strode off down the hallway, “does not seem to be proceeding well for seneschals, does it?”

* * * * *

“But he must have done it!” Greiryn protested. “We all saw him holding the bow! T-the string was still quivering!”

“My spells,” Lord Jalanus said icily, “do not lie. Lord Crimmon is innocent.”

“I–I quite understand,” the seneschal said hastily. “I didn’t mean to doubt you! It’s just so… so bewildering! Who could have done it, then?”

“Bolyth,” the War Wizard snapped, turning to the mountainous Purple Dragon who always lurked at his elbow, “have the gates closed immediately. Post guards. I want this estate sealed. Seneschal, reveal unto me, as soon as your wits allow, who—if anyone—has left this house since the deaths.” He rose in a swirl of cloth-of-gold and claret-hued velvet oversleeves, his third change of garments in as many hours.

“I—but of course,” Greiryn agreed, almost babbling. “There can’t be all that many. We’re not like the Dales here, with Elminster flitting in and out like some great nightbat!”

Behind them both, a suit of armor in the corner blurred momentarily. Rhauligan saw it become a white-bearded man in robes, wink at him, and wave cheerily. He winked back, just before the armor became simply armor again.

Oblivious to this visitation, the seneschal was babbling on, clearly shaken at the thought of his young lord master’s innocence. Now that was interesting in itself… “Uh, great Lord Justice,” Greiryn interrupted himself, “where’re you going now?”

“To question the bodies, of course,” the War Wizard snapped, drawing out a wand that was fully three feet long and seemed to be made entirely of polished and fused human fingerbones. “They rarely have much of value to impart, but—‘tis procedure…”

“And we are all slaves to procedure,” Rhauligan told the ceiling gently, completing the court saying. At the doorway, the striding War Wizard stopped, stiffened, then surged into motion again, sweeping out of the room without a word.

* * * * *

“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, 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 dismissal, as a disturbance at the door heralded the arrival of the master cellarer, a man who 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 long at them ere turning to gaze at Rhauligan.

Then 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…” As 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, 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; ‘twas around his neck when I saw him laid out. Then, look, so does the head maid, the seneschal of course, the back chambermaid—‘twas 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 platinum 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 passage 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.

The door closed behind the merchant, its bolt sliding solidly into place, a few breaths before the tramp of heavy boots in the corridor heralded the approach of a half-dozen guards, sent to find and bring back “that dangerous Harper.” They thundered right past the closed, featureless door.

Rhauligan peered and thumbed scrolls and ledgers, and flipped pages. It wasn’t long before something became obvious through all the scrawled signatures and expense entries and reassignments of funds: the Paertrover coffers were well-nigh empty. He sat back thoughtfully, stroking his chin, and only gradually became aware that the room behind him seemed brighter than before.

He turned with smooth swiftness, hand going to the hilt of the throwing knife strapped to his left forearm, but nothing met his eye save a fading, swirling area of radiance, like a scattering of misplaced moonlight. He blinked once, and it was gone. Gone—but had definitely been there.

After a brief tour of that end of the room, poking and tapping in search of secret doors and passages, Rhauligan shrugged and began the quick process of returning the room to exactly how he’d found it. When he was done, he blew out the lamp and slipped out the door again.

Alone in the darkness, the radiance silently returned, and with it what Rhauligan had been too slow to turn and see: a disembodied head, its face pinched and white, and the plumes of the long helm it wore dancing gently in an unseen breeze. It was smiling broadly as it looked at the closed door, and abruptly started to fade away. A breath later, the room was dark and empty once more.

* * * * *

Guards hunted Glarasteer Rhauligan around Taverton Hall for a good two bells, shouting and clumping up stairs and down passages, but found no sign of the merchant. Their failure came as no surprise to their quarry, who spent the afternoon in happy slumber deep in the shade of an overhang high up on the roof. If Rhauligan was right, things would happen at the Hall soon, in the dark hours, and he’d have to be awake, aware, and in the right spot. Unless, of course, he wanted to see more murders done.

* * * * *

Guards are notoriously lazy and unobservant after a heavy meal and a bottle of fine vintage each (contributed by the seneschal with a rather morose shrug and the words, “You may as well. My master, who gathered these, is a little too dead to miss them now.”) And it was at that time, with sunset looming, that a certain much-sought-after dealer in fine turrets slid down a pillar and sprang away into the trees. He left in his wake only dancing, disturbed bushes for a bored guard to glance at, peer hard, shrug, and return his attention to a hard-plied toothpick.

Rhauligan circled the Hall like a silent shadow, keeping among the trees and shrubbery as he sought other sentinels. Armsmen guarded the gates and the grand front entrance of the Hall, but none stood like ridiculous statues in gardens or wooded glades, to feed the biting bugs.

Not far from the closed and little-used cart gate around the back of the Hall, however, something was stamping on the moss: a saddled horse, hampered in its cropping of grass by four heavy saddlebags. Rhauligan checked their contents and its tether, smiled grimly, and noted that the horse was just out of sight of the Hall windows. A little path wandered off from where he stood toward the back doors. The merchant looked up, found a bough that was big enough, and swung himself aloft to wait.

It did not take long. The last golden light soon faded and the crickets began their songs. Nightgloom stole through the trees, dew glistened as servants lit lamps, and the dark shadow on the branch shifted his position with infinite care to keep his feet from going numb.

The first sharp whiff of smoke came a breath before a long tongue of flame flared up, like a catching candle, inside a nearby window. There followed a sudden, rising roar, then a dull gasp as flames were born around something very flammable; draperies or clothes well-soaked in lamp oil, no doubt. Then came the shouts, the shattering of glass, and men pounding here and there in the sudden, hot brightness with buckets, valuables, and much cursing. The shadow never moved from its perch. All was unfolding as foreseen: Taverton Hall was afire.

The roaring became a steady din, and sparks spat forth into the night in a glittering rain. Draperies at one window erupted in a flame so bright that Rhauligan could clearly see the faces of the hurrying, jostling men. Lord Jalanus was among them, bent over an open book that an anxious-looking guard was holding open and up to him.

There was a crash and fresh flames as part of the roof fell in, and flaming embers rained down around the War Wizard. Jalanus staggered back, snarling something. Then he snatched at a spark in the air, caught it, stammered something hasty—and all over the Hall the flames seemed to freeze for a moment, falling silent and turning green.

A breath later, they started to move again, crawling toward the stars with lessened hunger. The War Wizard shook his head, slammed the book shut, and sent the armsman to join the bucket-runners. Then he raised his hands as if about to conduct a choir, and cast quite a different spell.

Several rooms suddenly vanished, fire and all, leaving a gaping hole in the darkness. The flames that remained were in two places, lesser remnants small enough that stable-buckets of hurled water might tame them. Every hand would be needed, however, and the night would be a long and sweat-soaked struggle. The shadow on the branch stirred, but did not move. It was waiting for something else.

The War Wizard opened his book again and strode to where a lamp afforded better light. That was what someone had been waiting for… someone who slipped out of a window not far from the flames, crossing the ember-strewn lawn to the trees in a few darting strides.

The tether was undone and hand-coiled, then saddle-leather creaked just beneath Rhauligan, who flexed his fingers, waited a moment more, then made his move.

The saddle had a high crupper. He lowered himself gently down onto it with one hand, steadying himself against the branch with the other. The faint whisper of his movements was cloaked by the roar of the fire and the sounds made by the unwitting man in front of him, leaning forward to shake out the reins. Rhauligan delicately plucked a dagger from its sheath on the back of the man’s belt and threw it away into the night.

That slight sound made the man turn in his saddle and reach for his sword. Rhauligan turned with him, placing one firm hand on the man’s sword wrist and snaking the other around his throat. “Warm evening we’re having,” he murmured politely, as the man in front of him stiffened.

His next few breaths were spent in frantic twisting and straining as the two men struggled together. Rhauligan hooked his boots around those of his foe to keep from being shoved off the snorting, bucking horse, and the night became a confusion of elbows, sudden jerks, and grunts of effort. The merchant kept the man’s throat in the vise of his tightening elbow, and frantic fingers clawed at his arm once they found the dagger sheath empty—clawed, but found no freedom.

The man kicked and snarled, and abruptly the horse burst into motion, crashing through rose bushes with a fearful, sobbing cry of its own. Trees plunged up to meet them in the night, with an open garden beyond. Rhauligan grimly

set about kicking at one flank of the mount, to turn it back toward the flames.

He was failing, and taking some vicious bites from the man in the saddle in front of him, when firelight gleamed on a helm as a guard rose suddenly into view almost under the hooves of the galloping horse. It reared, bugling in real fear, and when it came down, running hard, the blazing wing of the Hall was suddenly dead ahead, and approaching fast.

The man in the saddle twisted and ducked frantically, almost hauling Rhauligan off into thin air, but the merchant clung to him with fingers of iron as they burst through a closed gate, wood flying in splinters around their ears, plunged down a lane, and charged into a knot of men dipping buckets in a garden pond.

Someone screamed, and for a moment there was something yielding beneath the mount’s pounding hooves. Rhauligan had a brief glimpse of the War Wizard standing calmly in their path, casting another firequench spell at the Hall with careful concentration.

The horse veered to avoid this unmoving obstacle, slipped in ferns and loose earth, and caught its hooves on a low stone wall. Bone shattered with a sharp crack. Their mount screamed like a child in agony, kicked wildly at the sky, and fell over on its side, twisting and arching. It landed on a row of stone flower urns that shattered into dagger-like shards and ended its keening abruptly.

An instant later, a flying Rhauligan fetched up hard against an unbroken urn. Its shattering made his shoulder erupt in searing pain.

As he rolled unsteadily to his feet, gasping, he saw drawn swords on all sides, the furious face of Lord Jalanus glaring down—then a sudden, blindingly-bright white light as the War Wizard unhooded a wand.

“You set this fire, thief!”

The shout was close at hand. Rhauligan flung himself forward into a frantic roll away from it without looking back to see how close the blade seeking his blood was.

Sharp steel whistled through empty air, very close by. Rhauligan came to his feet, sprang onto the ornamental

wall, and spun around to face his foe. The man who’d been in the saddle lurched toward him, hacking at the air like a madman.

“You set this fire!” Immult Greiryn shouted again, missing Rhauligan with a tremendous slash so forceful that it almost made the seneschal fall over. “Slay him, one of you! Cut him down!”

“No,” said the Lord Justice in a cold, crisp voice that seemed to still the sound of the fire itself and made men freeze all around. “Do no such thing. This man lies. The merchant is innocent.”

Wild-eyed, the seneschal whirled and charged at the War Wizard, his blade flashing up. Jalanus Westerbotham stepped back in alarm, opening his mouth to call for aid, but bright steel flashed out of the night, spinning end over end in a hungry blur that struck blood from Greiryn’s sword hand, rang off the seneschal’s blade like a hammer striking a gong, and was gone into the flowers in a trice.

Lord Jalanus muttered something and lunged forward with sudden, supple speed, thrusting his empty hand at Greiryn as if it were a blade. The blow he landed seemed little more than a shove, but the seneschal staggered, doubled up as if a sword had pierced him through the guts, and crumpled onto his side, unconscious.

The War Wizard bent over the man to be sure he was asleep. Satisfied, he looked up and snapped, “Bolyth! The wire—this man’s thumbs, little fingers, and big toes bound together. Then stop his bleeding and watch over him yourself.”

As his everpresent, most trusted guard lumbered obediently forward, Jalanus Westerbotham turned his head, found Rhauligan, and said shortly, “A good throw. My thanks.”

The merchant sketched him a florid bow. The lips of the Lord Justice twisted into a rueful smile.

Guards were crowding in around them all, now, pushing past the servants and noble guests. “Lord,” one of them asked hesitantly, waving a gauntleted hand at Rhauligan, “shouldn’t we be arresting this one too?”

The War Wizard raised one cold eyebrow. “When, Brussgurt, did you adopt the habit of deciding for me who is guilty and who innocent? I’ve had a watching spell on this man for most of the evening: He’s most certainly innocent of the charge of fire-setting. I suspect his only crime was learning too much … for the seneschal to want him to go on living.”

“So who slew my daughter?” a darkly furious voice demanded. Its owner came shouldering through the last rushing smokes of the dying fire with the other two noble lords and their white-faced, staring daughters in tow. Lord Hornsar Farrowbrace’s eyes were like two chips of bright steel, and his hand was on the hilt of a heavy warsword that had not been on his hip before.

“Master Rhauligan?” the War Wizard asked. “You tell him.”

The merchant met the eyes of the Scepter of Justice for a long, sober moment, nodded, then turned to the angry noble.

“The seneschal,” he said simply, pointing down at the helpless, waking man who was being securely bound with wire, under the knees of three burly guards.

“The Paertrover gold is almost all gone and Greiryn was the only longtime family servant with access to it. Lord, I fear your daughter lies dead this night solely because Greiryn’s a poor shot. He’d accounted for the coins flowing out with bills and ledger-entries that only one man could be certain were false: his lord and master. He meant to slay Lord Eskult while Shamril’s attentions kept him standing more or less in one place: a clear target that an old veteran missed.”

Lord Farrowbrace growled wordlessly as he looked down at Immult Greiryn, who cowered away despite the burly guards between them.

“But what of the ghost?” Lady Lathdue Huntingdown protested. “It’s not just some tall tale from Crimmon! The servants have all been saying..

Rhauligan held up a hand to stop her speaking, went to where the horse lay, and tore open the laces of a saddlebag.

Gold coins glittered in the hand he held out to her. “The last of Lord Eskult’s wealth,” he explained. “This wretch at our feet has already spent or stolen the rest. He had help from at least one man, the castellan of the vault—whose bones are no doubt yonder in the heart of the blaze, wearing the seneschal’s armor or chain of office or something to make us think the flames have claimed poor, faithful old Greiryn.”

Coins clinked as he tossed a second saddlebag down beside the first, then a third. The last yielded up a plumed helm and ajar of white powder.

“The grinning ghost of Taverton Hall,” Rhauligan announced to the gathered, peering folk, holding them up. “You were all supposed to flee, you see, not rush to see who’d fired the bolt…”

Someone screamed. Someone else cursed, slowly and in trembling tones. Folk were backing away, their faces pale and their fearful stares directed past Rhauligan’s shoulder.

The turret merchant turned slowly, already knowing what he’d see. He swallowed, just once, when he found that he’d been dead right.

A breeze he did not feel was stirring the plumes of the helm worn by the grinning face of the head that was floating almost nose to nose with him. Lord Farrowbrace started calling hoarsely on god after god, somewhere nearby, and Rhauligan could hear the sounds of boots whose owners were enthusiastically running away.

The dark eyes of the Grinning Ghost of Taverton Hall were like endless, lightless pits, but somehow they were meeting his own gaze with an approving look, so Rhauligan stood his ground when ghostly shadows spilled out from the helm, flickered bone-white, and seemed to struggle and convulse. After long moments, some of those shifting shadows became a ghostly hand, reaching out for the Harper.

Scalp crawling, Glarasteer Rhauligan did the bravest, and possibly the most foolhardy thing in his life: He stood his ground as that spectral arm clapped his own arm firmly.

The cold was instant and bone-chilling. Rhauligan grunted and staggered back involuntarily, his face going gray. There was a loud, solid thump beside him, and when he looked down, he discovered Lord Justice Jalanus Westerbotham sprawled on his back in the mud, fallen in a dead faint.

Trembling just a trifle, Rhauligan looked back at the ghost—but it was gone. Empty air swirled and flickered in front of him; he was standing alone in the moonlight.

The Lady Lathdue and the Lady Chalass were approaching him hesitantly, their eyes dark and apprehensive, the blades borne by their fathers thrusting out protectively between their slim arms. Lord Farrowbrace, his eyes haunted with wonder, stood a little apart, his own sword dangling toward the trampled ground.

“Sir? Are you well?” the Lady Lathdue asked.

As she spoke, a throng of ghostly figures in finery and armor seemed to melt into solidity all around the nobles, all of them nodding approvingly or sketching salutes with spectral hands or blades. Rhauligan blinked, staggering under the sheer weight of so much ghostly regard—and when he could see again, they were all gone.

Wondering, the turret merchant looked down at his arm, which still felt encased in bone-searing ice. His leather jerkin had melted away in three deep gouges, where three bone-white marks were burned into his bronzed skin. Like old scars they seemed: the parallel stripes of three gripping fingers.

Glarasteer Rhauligan looked up at them all, drew in a deep breath, and said in a voice that was almost steady, “I’ll live. Smoke can kill those who can’t move out of it: we must find and free Lord Crimmon Paertrover. Let us be about it.”

* * * * *

But from that night until the day he died, those three white marks never left Rhauligan’s arm.