The City of Splendors

CHAPTER FOUR

Naoni Dyre sang softly to herself as she spun the last few chips of amethyst into shining purple thread.

A hole in the kitchen doorframe held her distaff: a long-handled runcible spoon, both ladle and fork. Instead of wool or flax, it held a steadily diminishing pile of rough amethysts. Delicate purple fibers spilled between its narrow tines in a curtain of gossamer purple that drew down into a triangle. At the point of that triangle Naoni's deft, pale fingers were busily at work, drafting the fibers together and easing them onto the shaft of her spindle.

It was a simple drop spindle, a round, smooth stick ending in a flat wooden wheel and hung suspended by the fine purple thread. As it spun, its weight pulled the fibers from the gemstones, and the thread collected in a widening cone atop the wooden wheel.

It was no small skill, keeping the spindle moving at the perfect speed-not so fast that it broke the delicate thread nor so slow that it fell to the floor. To Naoni, the rhythm was as natural as breathing.

When the last of the gems slipped into thread, Naoni eased the spindle to the floor. She didn't fear a fall might shatter her work. Anything she spun became as strong and flexible as silk, for Naoni Dyre was a minor sorceress.

Hmmph. Minor indeed. The ability to spin nearly anything into thread was her lone gift.

"You, dear sister, need a spinning wheel."

A fond smile lit Naoni's face as she turned to greet Faendra. Her younger sister was the very image of their dead mother: a petite and pretty strawberry blonde, plump in all the right places, with blue, blue eyes that promised sunny afternoons, and a pert little nose that matched a smile that was never far from her lips.

"Spinning wheels are far too dear. What would Father say about such expense?" Naoni asked mildly.

Faendra propped fists on hips and thrust forth her chin in imitation of their father's manner. "Buy a proper wheel, girl, and stop spinning thread like a Calishite slave! Good tools will triple your coins, or may Waukeen damn me to the poorhouse," she growled, in tones as deep and gruff as she could manage.

They laughed together, but Naoni's mirth quickly faded to a sigh. Her father knew she spun and earned fair coin, but dismissed attempted talk about her work with a brusque, "What's yours is yours." He was far more interested in her ability to run the household with frugal efficiency.

"Perhaps it's time to consider a wheel," she said. "Jacintha would be pleased to have more gem thread."

Faendra eyed the glittering skeins carefully laid out on the sideboard. "What wouldn't I give for a gown of Jacintha's gemsilk!" she said wistfully. "Perhaps this time the gnome could pay you in cloth?"

"Little chance of that; most of gemsilk's value is the gems, not the labor."

The younger girl sniffed. "Oh? Who else can spin such thread?"

"I know of none other," Naoni admitted, "nor know I another weaver who has Jacintha's gift for weaving many sources together into cloth. If not for her, how would I have gems to weave? We're fortunate to have found each other; I've no quarrel with our arrangement."

"So be it," Faendra said lightly. "How soon can we be in the Warrens?"

"We can leave as soon as I finish this last skein." Naoni picked up a niddy-noddy, a simple wooden frame of three sticks, and began to wind the thread around it.

"Niddy niddy noddy, two heads with one body," Faendra chanted, grinning. "You taught me that rhyme when you made your first frame. How old was I then, I wonder?"

"Seven winters," Naoni said softly. She'd begun spinning the year their mother died, leaving her, a lass of twelve winters, to run the household and raise a frolicsome little sister.

Her swift hands made short work of the winding. "If you'll summon Lark, we can leave."

"I'm here," announced a low-pitched voice.

The young woman who emerged from the buttery resembled her namesake: small, trim, and as brown as a meadow bird. Her long hair was gathered back into a single braid, and she wore a brown kirtle over a plain linen shift. A green ribbon bound her brows to hold back stray wisps of hair, and its two ends had been laced into her braid. A matching sash was tied around one of her bared arms. Her nose was perhaps too narrow and a bit overlong, and her bright brown eyes disconcertingly keen, but she was pleasant enough to look upon.

Naoni gave her a tentative smile. Her father, in keeping with their new-found affluence, had insisted they hire a servant, but his elder daughter was still not sure how a mistress should treat a hired lass.

Her sister had no such worries. To Faendra, every stranger was a friend yet unmet, and any girl living under her roof as good as a sister. She picked up a skein of glittering purple and draped it around Lark's shoulders.

"What say you? Wouldn't you love to wear a gemsilk gown?"

Lark carefully lifted the skein and set it aside. "For my work, in this heat? It'd be as wet as washrags by highsun."

"Don't be goose-witted. You wear such gowns to noble revels, not for cheese-making!"

"I've been to many such," Lark replied, in a tone that implied her memories of revels were neither fond nor impressive.

"To serve, yes, but not on the arm of some handsome, wealthy young man!"

Lark's lips thinned. "I know my place and want no other."

"Let's wrap and bundle the skeins," Naoni said hastily. They all got on well enough, but Lark had little patience for Faendra's thinking: beauty was its own guild, and the business of its members was to charm all the world into doing their will.

Faendra gave her sister a sunny smile. "I'll just change my gown and freshen my hair." She danced out of the room, humming.

"She'll not reappear until the task is done," Lark murmured.

True enough, but such truths would sit ill with the master of the household. "My father would not like to hear it said that any Dyre shirks work," Naoni observed carefully.

"Then I'll say instead both Dyre sisters are willing workers," Lark replied dryly. "Naoni's willing to work-and Faendra's willing to let her."

Naoni smiled faintly, shook her head, and wrapped linen over her basket. "That's the last of it. It seems strange so much thread can be woven from a handful of gems."

"Stranger still you can do it at all."

Faendra reappeared, twirling to show off her new blue gown and slippers dyed to match. The bodice was fashionably tight, the sleeves thrice-puffed and slashed to best display her rounded, rosy arms, and the slim skirt hugged her hips and thighs before flaring out in a graceful sweep.

Naoni frowned, gray eyes stern. "You're dressed very fine for the Warrens. Is that wise?"

Her sister danced over to kiss Naoni on the tip of her nose and then spun away with a grin. "You worry overmuch. Let's be off!"

As the three girls made their way through Dock Ward, the streets were as crowded and bustling as usual, but no fights or spilled wagons drew crowds and slowed them. Even the everpresent handcarts were fewer and less precariously loaded than usual.

They were soon standing in a narrow alley that ended in a tangle of ramshackle buildings. Naoni tapped on a sagging door half-hidden behind a rotting pile of broken barrel-staves.

It swung open to flickering torchlight amid darkness and the familiar hard stares of a pair of halfling guards. Mostly hidden beyond the doorframe, they were dressed as human urchins, and their belts bore cheap, bright-painted leather scabbards. Despite their childish, harmless appearance, those scabbards held swords that were very real and very sharp.

"A fine afternoon to you both," Naoni said, hefting her covered basket. "I've business with Jacintha."

The guards nodded and silently drew back to let her pass. The three girls ducked inside, and Lark spread her hands, palms up, to show she bore no weapons.

"You, too," one hin said in a surprisingly gruff voice, nodding at Faendra. "Palms, pretty one?"

The younger Dyre sister rolled her eyes and held her arms out wide as if to ask "And where might I be hiding anything in this gown?"

The guard nodded, and the door was already being thrust closed behind them as Naoni handed the basket to Lark and took a torch from the guards' barrel. Lighting it from their wall-torch, she started along the tunnel.

The smell of damp stone arose strongly around the three, and they took care not to brush against the walls. The Warrens was one of Waterdeep's lesser-known neighborhoods. It had been centuries in the making, beginning with stone houses built along hilly streets. Betimes a higher floor would be added here, or a walkway built across a street from house to house there, and with the passing years stretches of streets were completely hidden from the sun, and many lowest floors became cellars. Rebuilding shored up the lower levels and worked upward from there, and beneath a few blocks of bustling Waterdeep, the slow result of this tireless reaching for the grander was a forgotten layer.

Many Small Folk dwelt here. Gnomes, halflings, and even the occasional dwarf found a congenial and discreet address amid the dark cellars and narrow tunnels of the Warrens.

The lasses passed several gnomes coming the other way, and polite nods were exchanged. Jacintha was so highly regarded that Naoni, by association, was counted among their own.

Soon they reached a familiar arched door. Twice as wide as it was tall, it stood open, letting out a rhythmic, slightly ragged clatter to echo in the tunnel.

A soft clack and sweep filled the room, swelling around the three lasses as they entered. Half a dozen looms clattered busily in the low-vaulted stone hall, but one slowed smoothly as the weaving-mistress left off her work and bustled over with a smile of welcome.

Jacintha was, as usual, too busy for additional pleasantries, taking the basket from Lark without pause to unwrap the skeins and hold them up into the lantern light.

She stared hard and nodded. "Fine, very fine."

Faendra had already wandered over to Jacintha's loom, which bore a silky, almost translucent amber fabric. Woven into it was a pattern of dragonflies with brilliant, glittering wings.

"How's this done?" she marveled, peering closely. "Many colors… but all the threads, warp and weft, seem of one…"

"And are," the gnome said briskly, "made from your sister's amber thread and silk I dyed to match. One drop of amber had a dragonfly trapped in it, as I recall. The pattern's none of my doing; it came of itself as I was weaving. 'Tis a pretty thing."

"Indeed it is," Faendra said longingly. Something brighter caught her eye. "What of this?" she asked, waving at a nearby glittering swath of red cloth.

The gnome smirked. "That'll become a nobleman's evening cloak. Take two paces to your left and gaze on it, letting your eyes lose focus."

Faendra did as she was bid, and after a moment burst out laughing. "There's a pattern: a male peacock, all a-strut!"

"Fitting for those who wear such things," Jacintha observed dryly, "and fitting amusement to those of us who don't."

She unstrung a pouch from her belt and handed it to Naoni. "Your coins are on one side, and the next gems to be spun on t'other. Peridot, a very fine pale green."

"That hue would suit Naoni, with her hair and eyes," hinted Faendra.

Her gaze slid to a bolt of shimmering blue that matched her own eyes, then moved to the pouch holding Naoni's payment, her meaning all too clear.

Naoni looked up from examining the gems to give her sister a warning glance. "A lovely green," she told Jacintha. "I'll enjoy spinning it."

It was the way of gnomes to remember faults, longings, and other weaknesses for future bargaining. Before Faendra could say anything else, her elder sister made swift work of the farewells and hustled her companions back out of the Warrens.

As Father expected her to know the sites where Dyre money or men were at work, Naoni led them up Redcloak Lane to check on the recent damage.

One entire run of scaffolding was a near-ruin. Faendra surveyed the bustling workmen and murmured, "I begin to see why Father was so a-fret."

Naoni frowned. "Even so, I dislike this talk of New Days and challenges to the Lords."

"Old men's foolishness," her sister said cheerfully, putting a lilt to her hips for the benefit of the watching laborers.

"Such talk's nothing new," Lark observed. "Common folk have always complained about nobles, and rumors about the Lords are as old as Mount Waterdeep itself."

Naoni nodded. "The Lords know their own work best."

Lark made a sound that was suspiciously like a sniff. "Some may be good, fine men behind those masks, but I'll warrant most of them are no better than they have to be. Still, Waterdeep goes along well enough, and I'd just as soon not shave the dog to spite its fleas."

"Perhaps Father wants to be a Lord," Faendra put in lightly. "I suppose many might be unhappy that Waterdeep's governed in secret, for how can they rise in power and influence unless they can see the path ahead?"

Naoni winced. Despite her frivolities, her sister saw people with disturbing clarity. Sudden fear rose in her: did Faendra know their mother's secret?

No, that was impossible, surely! Naoni had hidden those letters and journals very carefully. And well she had! In his current temper, Father needed no reminders of Ilyndeira Dyre's sad taste of Waterdhavian nobility.

Redcloak Lane was behind them now, and Faendra had strolled into a smaller crossway than Naoni would have chosen.

They almost brushed shoulders with a cluster of dockers arguing heatedly over ownership of a battered crate in their midst.

Naoni was only six or seven strides past the men when a realization struck her with a sudden chill.

The argument had fallen silent.

She glanced back. One man was only a few paces behind her, moving very quickly and quietly.

He gave her a grin that might have been charming if he'd still possessed most of his teeth. "What's in the pouch, pretty one? Let's have a look."

Naoni's heart started to pound. All six of the others were right behind the foremost one. Before she could cry out to Faendra and Lark, the men charged at her, and knives flashed in their hands.

"That dagger was my favorite-or rather, the two of them were." Malark held out his hands: one empty, the other holding a dagger with an elaborate Kothont monogram. "Superbly balanced, very fine steel, and a matched pair. I'll have it back, and damn the cost."

Taeros grinned mockingly. "I'd wish you luck, but you'll need the kiss of Tymora herself to find it. By now your fang's probably been buried in several hearts-"

"All at once?" inquired Korvaun Helmfast, with a gentle smile.

"— in rapid succession," Taeros continued, "and thereafter sent to the bottom of the harbor, still hilt-deep in its last victim!"

"You," Beldar growled, "spin too many wild tales. Malark has the way of it. Someone at the worksite picked up his dagger, and will doubtless require some… persuasion to relinquish his prize."

"If we employ discretion, perhaps we could settle this with less 'persuasion,'" Korvaun said. "If we keep our tempers and guard our tongues, this could be easily resolved."

"Have you a temper to keep?" Taeros asked with mock incredulity. "I've seen no evidence of it."

Korvaun shrugged. "We won't learn if the workmen found Malark's dagger if we arrive with accusations and demands, but we might well start a small riot."

"Speaking of small riots," Malark interrupted urgently, "look!"

Three young women were running frantically toward them, with several rough-looking men pounding along hard on their heels.

Beldar's disgruntlement changed to dark glee as his sword sang out of its scabbard.

Malark ducked deftly aside to avoid getting cut, drew his own blade, and started down the alley toward the girls.

Beldar sprinted past him, eyes afire. "Gemcloaks!" he shouted as he went, Korvaun and Malark right at his heels. "The Gemcloaks are upon you!"

Which is when, of course, Taeros tripped on a loose cobble and fell on his face amid a swirl of amber.

Fortunate was the hero, he observed wryly, who writes his own story. If ever this tale were told, Taeros Hawkwinter would be foremost among the fair maidens' defenders. Until then, he'd have to acquit himself as best he could.

He picked himself up, drew his sword, and charged after his more nimble friends.

Hard fingers raked down Naoni's back, then snatched at her hair. Desperately she jerked her head away, clenching her teeth against the burst of pain as tresses tore.

She stumbled and almost went down, but a glimpse of Faendra's wide-eyed terror gave her new speed. She caught her sister's hand and pulled her along. Lark was several paces ahead, running like a rabbit. Then, suddenly, there were men with drawn swords shouting and running toward them, too!

"Oh, Lady Luck!" Naoni gasped, as a heavy hand fell on her shoulder and dragged her down. "Be with my Faen…"

She struck the cobbles, hard. The pouch at her belt slammed into her midriff, leaving her no breath at all. Writhing and sobbing, she looked frantically about for her sister.

There! Somehow Faendra had slipped past the onrushing men and was nearly to the main street. She'd be safe there.

Relief swept through Naoni. She was dimly aware of rough hands clawing at her belt and her hand, where it was clutching the heavy little bag. Her attacker was snarling promises of what he'd do to her if she didn't yield it up right quick, and Suddenly he was gone. A bloodstained cobblestone rolled past Naoni's hair-tangled gaze, and she saw a determined-looking Lark reaching down for another.

A man with a long, gleaming sword in his hand and a red cloak flapping-a cloak made of Jacintha's gem-fabric, woven from her thread! — sprang past Lark, soaring right over Naoni in a leap that snatched him from view.

"Have at you, miscreants!" a cultured voice rang out.

Naoni rolled out of the way of Red Cloak's companions. As she came up to her knees, she caught sight of one of the halfling guards from the Warrens. He winked at her as he darted past, a blur of dusty gray, to hamstring one of the ruffians.

The man screamed and went down, and his fellow behind him went pale and staggered hastily back out of the way as a second grandly garbed man sprang past Naoni, blue cloak swirling and blade flashing.

The thieves brandished knives and muttered curses as they hastily retreated. One fell heavily, tripping the man behind him. Naoni saw a leather thong slide out from behind his ankle, and the two halflings responsible for tripping him vanish behind the tangle of frantically struggling arms and dirty, hairy legs.

These must be guardians, sent by Jacintha to tail her home. She'd often been assured the Small Folk protected their own, but this was the first time she'd caught them at their work.

"Run, lowlife scum!" exulted one of their sword-waving rescuers, a red-bearded young giant in a green gemcloak with, oddly enough, a Moonshar accent. "Bested with barely a slash of my steel!"

"They weren't all that good at standing, let alone fighting," observed a dark-haired youth whose cultured tones were heavily laced with sarcasm. "No, Beldar, let them go. I believe we can trust the Watch to find crawling men."

Nobles. These must be nobles. Who else would speak of Watchmen with such weary disdain? Plenty of crafters and dockers hated the Watch, but Naoni had never heard them dismissed with amusement before.

A sword slid back into its sheath, and firm but gentle fingers were under Naoni's elbows, lifting her. She looked up into a handsome face framed by fair, short-shorn hair. The man's eyes were blue and kind, full of concern… and something more.

It took Naoni a moment to recognize that "something more" as the sort of look commonly directed at pretty Faendra.

"Are you hurt, my lady?"

She considered this, and the man's lips twitched.

"Had I asked how your companions fared, you'd have a ready answer," he said quietly. "In the midst of danger, you spared no thought for yourself."

"Well, there wasn't time, you see," she said lamely.

He smiled, not in mockery, but with genuine warmth, and beyond him, Naoni caught sight of a rising cobblestone, clenched in familiar work-reddened fingers.

"Lark, no!" she cried.

The man whirled, blue cloak swirling. Lark stepped deftly back and tossed her weapon down.

"My… yon goodwoman means no harm," Naoni said urgently, putting a staying hand on the man's sword arm.

"Oho!" the red-bearded man grinned knowingly, as the nobles gathered around.

She snatched her hand away. Her pouch might be heavy enough to tempt even these young blades-and didn't such highnoses come to Dock Ward to sport with lowborn lasses? Would the refusal of a damsel they'd just rescued be heeded?

Her younger sister was wandering back, pretty face cat-curious. Fear choked Naoni. Not Faendra! Never that!

"Lark meant no harm," she repeated hastily. "Can you say as much?"

"Aye," the fair-haired man told her firmly. "Korvaun's my name-Lord Korvaun Helmfast-and despite what some say about the habits of the nobility, I'm not in the habit of attacking women in the street."

"He speaks for himself," the red-bearded man said cheerfully, giving Faendra a good-natured wink.

Naoni's heart sank at the delight in her sister's face. Faen might have their mother's beauty, but that didn't mean she had to repeat Mother's mistakes!

The sardonic man sighed. "Malark, not now! Save the jests for ladies not so unsettled. Ah, forgive me: I am Lord Taeros Hawkwinter, this buffoon is Lord Malark Kothont, and our foremost battle-blade yonder is Lord Beldar Roaringhorn. Usually his tongue is as swift as his sword, but just now he seems at a most uncharacteristic lack for words. Collectively we're the Gemcloaks for, hem, obvious reasons. Are you unhurt?"

Naoni nodded, alarm fading. "Bruised, perhaps. They took nothing." She managed a smile. "I'm Naoni Dyre. This is my sister Faendra, and our servant Lark."

Faendra pointed at Naoni, her eyes bright. "She spun the gems that went into the cloaks you're wearing."

The one called Beldar frowned. "Crafters?"

"Lord Roaringhorn," Lark said, her voice like acid, "you seem surprised to learn we're respectable women."

The leader of the Gemcloaks reddened at her rebuke. "Forgive me, mistresses, but what do you hereabouts? These streets are no place for-"

"Folk who must go where their work takes them?" Lark's voice and gaze were now positively glacial. "What would you know of work?"

Beldar and Lark locked gazes. What passed between them only they knew, but it looked profoundly unpleasant. Naoni winced.

Gods above, we should be thanking these men, not insulting them! They seem pleasant enough, but they're nobles-and who knows what such grand folk might do if they take offense?

"We just came from one of my father's worksites," she said hastily. "It was badly damaged by some bold blades playing pranks."

The four nobles exchanged uneasy looks.

The one called Malark frowned. "Stands this, ah, site on Redcloak Lane?"

"It does."

Four throats were cleared in unison. "Good ladies," Lord Roaringhorn said stiffly, "you're probably not going to like these next words of mine well…"

"That's a certainty," Lark said under her breath, causing Faendra to giggle and Malark to grin.

Naoni sent both girls a quelling look and turned it into a warning frown when Malark offered his arm to Faendra. Ignoring her, Faendra slipped her hand into the crook of Lord Kothont's arm with an easy grace that suggested long practice in front of a mirror.

"Mistress Naoni," Korvaun Helmfast murmured gravely as he took her hand in both of his, "will you suffer our protection as you take us to your father? Those ruffians are not the only dangers in Dock Ward."

"Ah, of course, but why take you such an interest in us?" Then, belatedly, "My father?"

"Mistress," Lark said crisply, "these four fine noblemen are obviously responsible for the worksite damage. And, being men of honor, they're planning to make restitution. Isn't that so, Lord Roaringhorn?"

"It is," Beldar said stiffly.

"Then my two lady mistresses here will be happy to take you to the man you wish to see. No," she corrected herself, "the man you need to see. No one wishes to see Master Dyre in his present mood, but… the gods don't always grant wishes." She looked at Naoni. "Does that cover it, mistress?"

"It does," she agreed absently. "Most thoroughly."

Lark firmly took Lord Hawkwinter's arm, leaving Beldar with no partner, and gave him a glare. "Have a care where you walk, Lord Roaringhorn. It would be a shame to spoil those fine boots."

Naoni opened her mouth to order Lark into silence, but the words stuck in her throat. The girl's loyalty meant much, and her judgment could hardly be faulted. Everything Naoni knew warned her to distrust these noblemen-even kindly Lord Helmfast.

She glanced up at his handsome face, and something leaped inside her.

Especially Korvaun Helmfast.

Varandros Dyre reached his front door as the third imperious volley of rapping began. Even before its sharp thunder befell, he was scowling.

Someone was ignoring a perfectly good bellpull and striking his knocker-plate with hard metal.

The Master Stonemason shook the old sword that lived in the stave-stand beside the door out of its sheath and kept one hand near it as he shot the bolts. He didn't take the blade into his hand to heft meaningfully lest the rapping-now crack-crack-cracking on his good door again, by Tempus! — prove to be the Watch.

Dyre swung the stout door wide and stood back, his hand hovering by his blade, and saw what waited beyond his threshold.

His eyes flashed even before his mouth dropped open.

His daughters stood outside with the housemaid and a seeming army of smiling, fashionably garbed young men. There was color in everyone's cheeks, and hair askew, and faces that looked as if they'd been laughing and were holding back mirth even now!

And looming right in front of him, in the elegantly gloved hand of one of these laughing young pups, was a dagger, reversed and raised to strike his knocker-plate once more.

It was the twin of the one he'd found at the worksite, monogram and all.

Dyre raised a hand sharply, cutting off Faendra's excited flood of explanation of how their lives had been so bravely saved, by these very "Enough, daughter. I'll be having a word with these… gentlesirs," he growled at her, his fierce gaze brooking no argument.

Fire to match his own kindled briefly in those blue eyes-not for nothing was her name Dyre! — but Naoni placed a quelling hand on her sister's shoulder. Her gray eyes fixed on him in some sort of mute appeal. Before she could speak, the maid deftly herded both girls back from the doors and drew them firmly down the hall.

Dyre gave a curt nod of approval. Lark's wages were well spent; she at least had sense. Though in truth, he cared not if his daughters heard every word. Might be better for them if they did.

Varandros Dyre turned his back on the young nobles and strode around behind his desk to stand regarding them across its large, parchment-littered expanse. His gaze was not friendly.

Taeros saw Beldar looking askance at the untidy papers. So did the master of Dyre's Fine Walls and Dwellings.

"You seem unused to the litter of honest toil," Dyre said coldly. "Might I remind you that some of us in this fair city must work hard to keep Waterdeep fair?"

Shrewd eyes and ears weren't needed to conclude that the stonemason was simmering with rage, and Taeros raised a hand in a warning gesture to his fellows.

"It seems you protected my daughters and my maid, and I owe you the thanks any father must tender. Please accept it." Dyre did not trouble to make that 'please' anything but a command, and swept straight on.

"You must forgive me if I have some suspicions as to why such grand young lords, free in idleness to pursue any amusement that might occur to them and range freely from end to end of great Waterdeep, come to be in the vicinity of a certain worksite in the heart of highly unfashionable Dock Ward-a worksite that a band of young lordlings recently reduced to a shambles! In doing so, it seems they also found it amusing to sword honest workers, to say nothing of setting fires that might well have devastated more than a street or two of fair Waterdeep."

Dyre's words came out cold, clipped, and inexorable, like measured lash-blows. "And so damaging a scaffold that another worker fell from it this morn: a man who'll be maimed for life if healings fail."

Taeros saw his own guilt mirrored on his friends' faces. Before any of them could find the right words, Dyre planted his large hands on his desk, leaned forward with his eyes ablaze, and asked softly, "Now, would any of you know anything about this?"

Despite the desk, his shorter stature, and several paces of floor between them, the stonemason seemed to loom over the younger men.

Taeros swallowed. "Master Dyre, goodsir, I assure you, we'll…"

The Mason Stonemason looked directly at him, and under the sudden fierce fire of his gaze and its comical juxtaposition with that huge snout of a nose, the Hawkwinter's mouth went dry.

"Sir," Malark said swiftly, "of course we'll make amends!"

"Of course," Beldar added grandly, reaching for his purse. "I am-"

"I know who you are, Lord Roaringhorn," Dyre said with a snarl, "and I know you'll pay for all you've done. I'll have the Black Robes make sure of that, whatever your intentions. I know our laws, which is why I'm not taking a blade to all of you, right now, and ending your foolishness for good! Waterdeep had more than enough of the haughty vandalism of Waterdhavian nobility years ago."

He drew himself up, becoming, if possible, even more imposing.

"I shall expect all of you to keep well away from my daughters henceforth, which should prove easy for you, my lords, because they spend their days in honest work. You have your grand houses to sport in, to say nothing of clubs my lowborn girls would not be allowed through the doors of, even if they had coins enough to waste."

The stonemason took a long breath and continued more calmly but even more firmly, "My daughters will have to earn their places in Waterdhavian society, and I cannot think they'll be aided in achieving the station and success they deserve by consorting with ruffians, however nobly born, who amuse themselves by harming and beggaring others whenever they're not doing the dirty work of the Lords!"

Taeros blinked. Dirty work of the…?

The Gemcloaks scarcely had time to frown in puzzlement ere the Master Stoneworker came slowly around the edge of his desk, hands hanging loosely at his sides, ready for trouble.

"Nor am I alone in such views. I've friends among the guilds and shopkeepers who watch the antics of you and your like with far less than approval. Many eyes will have seen your arrival here, and tongues will wag as to why. A good part of the city-the working part-will be watching you lordlings very closely in days to come, to see if any 'accident' should befall me. Not because I am important, or for any love of me, but because time and again dissent has been quelled in Waterdeep through the silencing of overly loud critics, by accident after accident, and they won't stomach much more of it."

He took a step closer, and more than one noble hand drifted toward a swordhilt.

"So, my lords," Dyre added softly, his eyes still blazing, "let us understand each other very well. I will accept your apologies and your coins, and you will keep away from the women of my household, and take very great care that no further accidents befall me, Dyre's Fine Walls and Dwellings, or any of my worksites."

The stonemason's slow stalk forward brought him nose-to-chest with Beldar Roaringhorn, who said quietly, "Have done, goodsir. Your anger is understandable, but your slander of Waterdhavian nobility is both misplaced and repugnant. I-"

"Don't like to hear truth. Your sort never does. Right now the most important truth confronting you is this: I am a citizen of Waterdeep standing in my own house, and I'm far too angry to be prudent, so you'd best begone. Now. In due time my 'prentices will bring you an accounting, and you can send the coins back to me here."

Dyre pointed at the door, his hard gaze never leaving Beldar's eyes. Korvaun Helmfast moved to open it as swiftly and quietly as any servant.

Two young men stood just outside, their faces set and pale. Their matching tunics bore the stone-sprouting-a-fist badge of Dyre's Fine Walls and Dwellings. The stonemason's apprentices were clutching ready mattocks in their hands.

"Baraezym, Jivin," Varandros Dyre greeted them grimly. "Our guests are just departing. In peace, I trust. Mark their faces, for there may come a time when you'll need to know them."

The Gemcloaks had already begun to stride silently out, faces set, but Beldar turned his head sharply. "Goodman Dyre, just what do you mean by that?"

"I mean, lords," the Master Stonemason said flatly, "that a time will come when consequences can no longer be laughed away."

Varandros Dyre watched, stone-faced, as the lordlings stalked away, fine cloaks swirling.

Then he whirled around so swiftly his apprentices jumped. Ignoring them, he peered around the hall for his daughters.

There was no sign of them, but the door to the kitchens was open, and the housemaid stood in it, steam curling from the covered serving platter in her hands. Her gaze was on the floor, and she was as still as a statue.

Dyre nodded approvingly. Some folk, at least, knew their places. He permitted himself a chuckle of satisfaction as he made the gesture that sent his apprentices hastening to close and bar the doors.

Lark kept her eyes down and wisely said nothing.