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.She was well aware of many other eyes on her, drinking in her dark beauty.She’d been receiving such stares since back at the palace gates.Not that she wasn’t used to avid looks, and more, throughout most evenings.Amarune knew she had a magnificent figure—more the result of a wasp-thin waist and a sleekly muscled body than the overly lush curves possessed by some of her fellow dancers at the Dragonriders’—and a strikingly beautiful face, thanks to eyes that were larger and darker than most.Add to that her long, swirling fall of dark hair and the graceful, flowing movements she’d worked so hard to make her unwavering habit, and she drew gazes wherever she went.Even if Bloodbright proved to be a clumsy lover when he inevitably bedded her at the end of this long night, there were far worse ways to earn coin than to spend an evening as the hired arm-adornment of a young noble attending a palace feast.There’d be good food and better wine in her near future, as well as much to see and hear.Not just the splendors of the palace and its new-to-her gossip, but possible clients among the ambitious nobility who’d be attending.A chance to put names to faces, at least, and judge which lords she should “work” for, and which she’d probably prefer to avoid, when they sent their messengers.Only a bold few, such as Bloodbright, made it as far as the Dragonriders’ while out on their evening revelries; most preferred haughtier and more exclusive establishments, and only sent envoys into more common places to do their looking for them.Still guffawing, Lord Reinlake swept past them into the hall, and Amarune found herself being whirled along in his wake, on Bloodbright’s arm through a chicane of hanging lamps and tapestries into the bright and noisy gaiety of Dragontriumph Hall during an evening court feast.The Open Feast, she’d been curtly told before Bloodbright had run out of patience, was called that because—out of a tradition so venerable its origins had been forgotten—no royalty attended, so the feasters could speak more freely.They were certainly doing that.And enthusiastically shouting, singing, and making rude noises and impersonations, too.Not that Bloodbright was going to stand for her stopping long enough to really see or hear any of it yet; he was thirsty and was heading with swift urgency around the long table that dominated the room to a dimly lit archway where a cellarer was shooing servers with platters of tallglasses out into the great chamber like bees leaving a hive.Thirsty guests in the royal palace were not to be kept waiting.The din in the hall was deafening.A chapbook scribbler like Flarm “Mouth of Suzail” would have described the scene around Amarune right now something like: “Over splendid food in luxurious surroundings, bright young ambitious things mingle with jaded nobles and urbane courtiers, fluted wineglasses in hand, discussing the morrow of Cormyr—and jockeying for power in that future.” Amarune knew that, because those were the very words Flarm had used to describe last year’s Open Feast.Tress had kept that yellowing chapbook and had produced it triumphantly for Amarune’s perusal upon hearing of this night’s work.What—if Flarm could be trusted—was evidently the usual long feasting table ran like a lance down the length of Dragontriumph Hall, lined with chairs for a formal dinner.That night, however, it was set for “catch table,” where diners helped themselves to platters and moved freely about.She’d talked to some of the girls who’d been to other feasts, and knew that later, once many guests had become weary of drinking and nibbling—or drowsy thanks to overindulgence—the few who preferred to sit and eat more than circulate and talk would be joined by many more in the chairs, but at the moment almost everyone was standing and talking.And talking.By the gods, she’d heard shrieking children’s fights that were quieter!Bloodbright stopped with a smile in front of an elder servant he obviously knew, who was pouring wine from a decanter into tallglasses deftly plucked from a server’s platter and offering them wordlessly to feaster after feaster, accepting dregs and empties in return with practiced and politely silent elegance.“Fair evening, my lord!” the cellarer smiled and extended that smile with a nod in Amarune’s direction, without making it a leer.“Lady!”She smiled back at him then looked swiftly and—she hoped—longingly up at her patron, who flushed with pleasure as he took a tallglass and replied.“ ’Tis indeed, Jamaldro! Charsalace, is it? Ah, good, good! A glass for my lady!”One was put into Amarune’s fingers with a deft flourish, and Bloodbright smilingly propelled her away along the dim rear expanse of the hall, where knots of nobles were standing, drinks in hand, talking excitedly.He strolled a winding way through them, obviously showing her off.Amarune kept her eyes firmly on him, an expression of ardent worship on her face, but listened hard to the snatches of converse they were passing.“… oh, it’s haunted, all right! An entire wing of the palace! That’s why they built this new one we’re standing in, see?”“I heard it was magic raging through it that they couldn’t stop, that made them shutter yon wing and leave it abandoned—for years, now! Surely we’ve priests enough to end the hauntings in all that time, no matter how many there are!”“Essard, Essard, you should find one of your servants with kin working at the palace and ply them with drink some night—your worst wine will do—and hear the real tales told around here! They’ve tried priests in plenty! They’ve even reclaimed rooms here and there, for a few months … but again and again they find courtiers and war wizards lying dead in its passages!”Despite herself, despite having heard wilder rumors about the haunted wing of the palace scores of times, Amarune trembled in delicious fear.The whole palace knew the Princess Alusair rode the halls of the haunted wing on a spectral horse.In utter silence and in full armor she went, wild-eyed and with a bloody sword in her hand, passing through walls, floors, ceilings—and foolish courtiers—freely.The touch of her sword slew, and her ghostly hand passing through you chilled you to the bone and left you shivering for days.Those she just glared at were haunted by her eyes, seeing her cold gaze again and again in their waking hours thereafter.Why—Amarune felt a sharp pain just under her ribs.Lord Bloodbright had noticed her head turning away and had pinched her, hard.She looked swiftly back up at him—and found herself meeting an almost murderous glare.She grimaced a swift and silent apology and hastened to move against him like a roused wanton, grinding against his hip.That restored his smile, but Amarune found herself right beside some old blowhard of a fat merchant in wine-stained velvet who’d evidently decided that this chatter about the Ghost Regent was sorely in need of some supercilious correction.“You would do well to remember,” he brayed, “that the Princess Alusair is what is popularly known as a tormenting ghost, and shares those shadowed halls with risen-from-their-graves courtiers who now walk as skeletons, decrepit skeletons, and shambling horrors—these last being the same walking dead known in less refined cities, such as Waterdeep, as ‘zombie rotters [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]