Shadow's Witness (7 page)

Though held in Perivel’s name, the birthday ball

had long ago become as much about making deals as it was about honoring the elder Uskevren. Thamalon used the fine wine, excellent food, and general good feeling as a platform to discuss trade alliances and business deals with the rest of the Old Chauncel patriarchs. Cale felt certain that Perivel would approve.

Making his rounds with a bottle of Storm Ruby, he spotted his lord seated in a sequestered corner of the feasthall engaged in earnest conversation with Nuldrevyn Talendar. Cale could guess the topic of their discussion: a contract to arrange shipment of Uskevren wine to the southern lands of Faerun. House Talendar dealt in fine furniture and frequently shipped to the kingdoms of the far South—Amn, Calimshan, and Tethyr, where the demand for Archendale walnut and Sembian mahogany seemed infinite. Thamalon thought the Uskevren house wines would also sell briskly in the south—particularly the full-bodied Storm Ruby—and had long sought an economical way to move bottles. Renting space on a Talendar caravan would be ideal.

Seeing the opportunity Thamalon had instructed him to watch for, Cale maneuvered through the crowd and walked toward the two men. Like the other noblemen in attendance, both wore finely tailored attire —Thamalon’s fit frame covered in a twelve button doublet of crimson with black under-sleeves; Lord Talendar’s ample belly draped in a doublet of purple with silver under-sleeves and a lace collar. As well, both wore fitted hose and polished Sembian high boots. Neither wore visible steel. As was his custom, Thamalon had forbidden weapons at Perivel’s ball—even dress blades. The agenda was business, not blood, though the two frequently crossed paths in Selgaunt.

As he approached, Cale plucked uncomfortably at

his own black butler’s doublet and pants. Despite bis best efforts, he had never been able to retain a tailor competent to fit his towering frame. If his clothing was too short, it exposed his ankles and made him look an imbecile. If it was too large, he looked like a pale scarecrow swimming in a sea of black cloth. With only those two options, he had finally surrendered to the god of the ill-fit and decided on too large rather than too small, and resigned himself to the mediocrity of his tailor.

He had not worn his leather and steel for over a month—since his would-be ambush of a Night Knives’ kidnapping team had turned instead into a Zhentarim ambush of he and his friend Jak—and Gale had never longed for them more than now. He felt more than just uncomfortable in his ill-fitting attire; he felt false, as if he wore a lie for all to see. That night in Drover’s Square a month ago had resurrected the old Gale, and Erevis the butler had not been able to put him fully back in the grave. The feigned civility of Selgaunt’s nobility only reminded him of his own facade.

They wear a mask and hide behind a veneer, he thought, and so do I. When not serving drinks, he killed people. When not laughing at .one another’s jokes and complimenting the wine, they stabbed each other in the back like common street thieves. Except for Thamalon, of course.

Gale knew his lord to be honest, at least by Selgaunt’s standards, and fair by anybody’s standards. An uncommon man in this city, he thought. Honesty was rare in Selgaunt. Gale himself embodied the point, and the bitter taste of his own lies rankled him.

He stopped a discreet distance from Thamalon and Nuldrevyn so as not to intrude on their conversation. Music and the drone of conversation sounded all about

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him but he focused his hearing on only Thamalon and Lord Talendar.

Nuldrevyn Talendar, a tall, overweight man with heavy-lidded eyes, spoke in his deep voice. “An interesting proposition Thamalon. We should pursue it further.”

Thamalon leaned forward in his chair, placed his elbows on the table, crossed his hands before his face, and smiled his deal-nearly-done smile. “Indeed we should, Nuldrevyn. Of course, there will be a small commission for House Talendar on every bottle.”

“Of course.” Lord Talendar raised his glass in a toast and Thamalon reciprocated. Gale, having waited dutifully for a pause, took that moment to interject, a timely interruption planned by he and Thamalon days before.

“May I refill my Lords’ goblets?”

“Ah, Erevis. Excellent.”Thamalon made a show of scrutinizing the bottle that Gale held forth. He feigned surprise. “Why, this is the very Storm Ruby of which we were speaking, Nuldrevyn. I insist you sample it.”

Nuldrevyn looked receptive so Gale added, “This is the 1352 vintage, Lord Talendar. The very best in the household.”

From under his bushy brows, Thamalon shot him a sidelong glance of approval that only long familiarity allowed Gale to notice.

“Well, in that case,” Lord Talendar gulped down the last of the wine currently in his goblet and held it out to Gale. “I believe I will.”

“Excellent, Lord.” Gale refilled bis goblet and looked to Thamalon. “Will there be anything else, Lord?”

Thamalon smiled. “No, thank you, Erevis.”

Gale bowed to Thamalon, nodded to Lord Talendar, and walked away. With Nuldrevyn in such high spirits, favorable contract terms seemed assured.

“This is most excellent, Thamalon,” Cale heard as he walked away. “You say you press the grapes where…”

Having done his duty for his lord, Cale refocused on his primary concern—the security of the family. Though Jander Orvist and the rest of the Uskevren household guards watched with ready crossbows from the second floor balconies that overlooked the feasthall, Gale preferred to rely on his own trained eye. He acknowledged that an assassination attempt on Thamalon was unlikely, but he did not entirely rule it out. The Uskevren rivals in the Old Chauncel would like nothing more than to see the Old Owl dead, for then Tamlin would inherit the Uskevren holdings.

And Master Tamlin is too much a dilettante to manage even a whorehouse well, Cale thought. Much less a noble house. Guards or no, Cale would personally see to the safety of his lord, just as he had for the past nine years. ‘

Originally, he had come to Stormweather as a spy for the Night Knives, the thieves’ guild he had joined soon after coming to Selgaunt from Westgate. Though the Knives had been able to place spies as servants in most of the other noble houses, the guild had not been able to place an operative in Stormweather.

Because Cale had been formally educated—by tutors hired by a thieves’ guild in Westgate’—and knew the etiquette appropriate to upper society, he had sought to win favor with the Righteous Man and gain status in the guild by proposing a plan. He would eliminate tiie then current Uskevren butler and take the position himself. Thinking about it now made his stomach roil.

I had an innocent man killed so that I could put myself in a position to blackmail the influential Uskevren patriarch, he thought accusingly. It shamed

him that he could not even remember the previous butler’s name. I didn’t want to know his name, he realized. And I still don’t.

He hated himself for what he had been, for what he had done.

But I’m different now, he thought, with only a tinge of desperation. I’m different.

The plan had been perfect in its conception, but flawed in its execution. Gale quickly had come to respect Thamalon as the father he had never known, the Uskevren as the family he had never had/He replaced membership in a long series of guilds and shadowy organizations with the love of a real family. It had not taken him long to realize that he could not betray them.

Neither could he confide to them his background that he had been trained as a killer and thief by the Night Masks in Westgate, that he had been taught nine languages so as to better impersonate, forge, and decipher, that he had come to their home as a spy. He knew that Thamalon, an otherwise gracious man, would not forgive the betrayal. So he had decided to live a lie rather than give up what he had come to love.

Over the years, he had fed the Righteous Man harmless information about Thamalon and the Uskevren, occasionally threw in a useful tidbit about some other noble family, and in the meantime aided his lordship in running the household. His supervision of the servants was incidental. His true value to Thamalon was his knowledge of Selgaunt’s underworld—an underworld intricately intertwined with the plots of the Old Chauncel. He explained his illicit knowledge as derived from a disreputable cousin who moved in underworld circles. He had never been, and still wasn’t, sure that Thamalon believed in this

fictional cousin, but his lord had always respected Gate’s privacy.

Lie upon lie upon lie, he chided. But I’ve got no other options. If Thazienne ever learned what I was …

He feared putting a name to the feelings he had for the Uskevren daughter. He had watched her blossom from a precocious teen to the most stunning and vivacious young woman he had ever seen. Hie light from her innocent spirit lit the dark places in his soul like a bonfire. Without her.

He shook hisiead, suddenly tired. He did not want to think about the kind of man that he would have been if he hadn’t met her.

Almost involuntarily, his eyes sought her out. Towering head and shoulders over most of the men in attendance, he could see from one end of the feasthall to the other. Groups of guests thronged the room. Chalices and goblets clinked, laughter roared, music played, and Selgaunt’s nobility glittered like a dragon’s hoard. On the side of the hall nearest Cale stood the long feast tables, the dishes from the last course even now being cleared by Larajin and Ryton. They noticed him watching and picked up the pace of their efforts, Larajin fumbling with a serving platter in the process. At that, she looked up nervously, saw Gale’s frown, and wilted like a dying flower. He could see her slight body trembling.

Have to do something about that girl, he thought. He strived to be fair with the staff, but tolerated few mistakes. Larajin seemed all thumbs. He would have let her go months ago but Thamalon insisted he be patient with her. Cale did not want to know why his lord was so protective of the willowy girl and so did not inquire further,

Larajin and Ryton worked around a few smokers who still lingered at the feast tables. The noblemen

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talked softly amongst themselves through a haze of pipe smoke. The pipes reminded Cale of Jak Fleet, his friend. He smiled, and wondered how the little man fared. Probably loaded with coin, cards, and fine tobacco, he thought, and chuckled aloud.

Still desiring to catch sight of Thazienne, he peered across the hardwood dance floor—currently unoccupied. Even though Selgaunt’s Old Chauncel rarely danced, it was mandatory to have a dance floor. Cale continued scanning the opposite side of the hall.

A quartet of musicians sat upon a raised, carpeted dais and played softly. A fat, balding man pounding a slow beat on a hand drum played next to a nondescript but exceedingly skillful harpist. Next to them Cale saw a blonde, attractive woman playing the longhom and beside her a stocky, black-bearded man playing the shawm. Thamalon had imported the musicians all the way from Daerlun for the celebration. The unusual combination of strings, woodwinds, and subtle percussion was an innovation from Cormyr that had found popularity in the neighboring cities of Sembia. Cale listened to the quartet for the first time and found that he rather enjoyed the sound. The gentle tones of the instruments and the low murmur of the assembled guests combined to create a sleepy, melodic drone. He allowed himself to drift peacefully on the chords as he continued his search for Thazienne.

He finally spotted her standing near the wall, to the right of the musicians’ dais, and she stole his breath. The music and crowd noise fell away. He heard only his heartbeat, be saw only her, and she glittered like a jewel.

Dressed in a jade gown laced with silver thread and a bejeweled silver stomacher, her beauty outshone that of the other women in attendance the way silver

Selune outshone the glowing tears that trailed her orbit through the night sky. A crowd of noble sons surrounded her, talking, smiling, eager to impress.

Even from this distance, Gate recognized the frustrated set of her strong jaw. She hated noble fops and dress balls even more than he, but her mother had insisted she attend. As he watched, she smiled halfheartedly at a young noble’s joke and glanced about as though seeking an excuse to escape. Their eyes met. She gave him a quick wave and smiled at him—a smile of genuine happiness. The men around her turned to shoot him envious glares. He bit back bis jealousy, returned her wave, and smiled softly in return.

He dared not watch her too long for fear that his feelings would become plain on his face. Shooting her a final longing glance, he returned to his business and tried to locate the rest of the Uskevren family in the hall.

Lady Shamur, glamorous as always hi a long sleeved blue gown with a gold stomacher, sat nearby in lighthearted conversation with Dolera and Meena Foxmantle. To Gale’s perceptive eyes, she looked scarcely more comfortable than her daughter—her smiles seemed forced and her slim body looked coiled—but she masked her feelings well. Dutifully, Gale walked over and refreshed the three ladies’ wine glasses.

Thank you, Erevis,” said Shamur. She flashed a grateful smile for the interruption and the severity that usually masked her finely chiseled features fell away for a moment. In that instant, Gale caught a rare glimpse of his ladyship’s sophisticated beauty. Small wonder that Thazienne had turned out as gorgeous as she had; they could have been sisters.

“Do you require anything else, Lady?”

“No, Erevis. That will be all.”

He bowed, first to Shamur, then to the Foxmantles. “Lady. Ladies.”

“My,” observed Dolera in her singsong voice as he walked away. “He is so very tall.”

Gale hurried off without looking back. He would be hard-pressed to keep the impatience out of his voice if the empty-headed Dolera Foxmantle spoke to him. No wonder Lady Uskevren has to force her smiles, he thought with an inner grin.

He spotted Tamlin near the double doors that led to the forehall. The Uskevren heir stood with a half-empty wine bottle in his hand, a smile on his handsome face, and a crowd of young men and women clustered around him. Mostly women, Gale saw. At the edge of that sea of chattering femininity stood Tamlin’s huge bodyguard, Vox, watchful and alert as always. The big man’s crossed arms rippled with muscle, and even without weapons in evidence he radiated dangerous-ness. Gale watched Tamlin throw back his head in laughter and sprinkle the floor with wine. He frowned at Tamlin’s carelessness.