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  “But they so bore me when I am done making fun of them,” Regis said as they went out the front door, and Donnola laughed.

  And Wigglefingers, who was outside waiting for them, rolled his eyes.

  “Do try to make it a profitable evening,” the wizard reminded them both.

  Donnola replied, but Regis didn’t hear it, so entranced was he by Wigglefingers’s strange robe, which was covered in garish representations of a quarter moon and gigantic stars, making the grumpy mage look very much the part of a neophyte wizard hired to garner “ooohs,” “aaahs,” and laughs at a noble child’s birthday party.

  “Whatever are you wearing?” Regis asked incredulously.

  “Our good friend plays the role of jester this night,” Donnola explained, and Wigglefingers snapped his fingers and produced from nowhere a single rose with petals of assorted colors, the hues shifting as they fell, one by one, each fluttering almost to the floor before turning into a butterfly and flittering away.

  “Well played,” said Regis.

  The wizard rolled his eyes again and walked briskly to the waiting coach.

  “You will let them mock him in such a manner?” Regis asked Donnola.

  “Wigglefingers knows his role and plays it wonderfully,” Donnola replied.

  “He looks the part of the fool.”

  “And so he is always underestimated.” Donnola stopped and tugged Regis’s arm as he continued down the walk, turning him around. “Isn’t that always the way with our people?” she asked in all seriousness. “We are fools, children, playthings, the accepted object of mockery.”

  “I fail to see how any could look upon you and not think you most impress—”

  “Oh, stop it,” Donnola said, but she did offer a conciliatory smile to accept the compliment. “In truth, you must admit, we understand the reality of living amongst the larger folk of Faerûn. The wiser halflings can turn this condescension to an advantage, yes?”

  “Of course, my beautiful lady,” Regis replied, offering his arm to her once more. When she took it and they resumed their walk to the coach, Regis added, “Wulfgar, you know, would never harbor such thoughts.”

  “You were, and are, blessed with unusual and exceptional friends,” Donnola replied.

  He knew that Donnola didn’t even begin to understand how true that statement rang. He merely nodded in reply, but could have gone on for hours about the Companions of the Hall, of which he had always been a valued member, even when his own actions should have limited his role, and sometimes even invited their scorn.

  “Your barbarian friend is too unusual to be formally associated with Morada Topolino, you understand,” Donnola said, bringing the conversation back to Wulfgar alone. “Though that, too, will play to our advantage.”

  “You would deny him a warm bed?”

  “I have already arranged for one, indefinitely, at a most lovely inn,” Donnola replied. “From there, he will journey to the home of Lord Toulouse.”

  “Wulfgar will attend the ball?”

  “He agreed, yes,” Donnola answered.

  Regis laughed, trying to picture his enormous friend dressed in foppish Delthuntle finery. “How did you even find him a waistcoat large enough?” he stuttered to ask.

  “A waistcoat? But Master Spider Parrafin, what a silly thing to say!”

  Regis couldn’t help but smile into his dimples when Donnola called him that, particularly with her impressed tone.

  “Why, the barbarian beast, Wulfgar, is a proper ambassador from a faraway land called Icewind Dale, on a mission to secure the very best libations for the dwarves of Kelvin’s Cairn,” Donnola explained.

  Regis looked at her curiously. “The dwarves of Icewind Dale? They have been displaced …”

  “The ruse was Wulfgar’s idea, and a fine one,” Donnola explained. She let Regis help her up into the coach, not out of any feminine sense of decorum, certainly, but simply because her gown was not a practical item for ladder climbing—though it surely sufficed for hiding daggers and the like. “You met this Wulfgar creature on the crossing of the Sea of Fallen Stars, of course, and introduced him to me, but though I secured an invitation for him to attend the ball, he is unconnected to Morada Topolino, except perhaps as a client buyer.”

  Regis nodded at the cover story, and was still grinning widely at the thought of Wulfgar in fine clothing when he, too, ascended into the coach, but he said no more. Nor was he about to question Donnola on her wider decision to lower the profile of Morada Topolino, or to play upon the natural inclinations of the larger folk to look down upon the halflings in ways more than physical. Her observations about the realities of being the smallest of the races could not be denied. To be a halfling in many of Faerûn’s cities was to be overlooked, chided, often mocked. Grandfather Pericolo had done much to convince many in Delthuntle that such attitudes were dangerously misplaced, but even the previous successes of Morada Topolino had only dissuaded the persistent trope and prejudices so far.

  Indeed, from what Regis was beginning to glean from Donnola and Wigglefingers—with the drama of the captured pirates and boat, with this evening’s plan, and with the quieter general aspect of Morada Topolino—that much of the previous gains of the powerful halfling house had faded. The Sea of Fallen Stars had seen rough times during the Sundering—even to altering the landscape—and powerful vigilante and mercenary bands had come into play all around the coastal cities.

  For better or worse, Donnola had decided to lower the profile of Morada Topolino. Perhaps it was an admission of failure, perhaps an acceptance of reality, perhaps an act of timidity when an aggressive posture might have salvaged more of the previous glories. It was not Regis’s place to argue, surely, but to be ready to help her in any way she saw fit. He could only hope, though, that she would choose to step forth once more when things had better settled, if that ever happened, and return Morada Topolino to the heights Grandfather Pericolo had achieved.

  AFTER A CONSPICUOUS absence—at least to Regis—of nearly an hour, Wulfgar reappeared in the grand ballroom of Lord Toulouse, one of the richest and most influential men in all of Delthuntle—indeed, in all of Aglarond. The barbarian appeared to be pulled together, though his hair was a bit more messed than usual and his winter wolf cloak hung a bit askew.

  Less composed was a Lady of Court who entered soon after Wulfgar, her hair sticking weirdly from a comb on one side, several buttons on her gown undone.

  Regis just lowered his head and shook it, reminding himself that he shouldn’t be surprised. He lifted his fine glass of Zzar, the most famous sherry wine from Waterdeep, considered its beautiful orange hue, and inhaled its almond scent before taking a tiny sip.

  By the time he looked up again, Wulfgar was arm-in-arm with a woman, moving to the dance floor, and it was not the same woman who had just returned disheveled.

  Regis could only sigh.

  He watched his barbarian friend unabashedly bumble around the floor for a bit. Wulfgar appeared graceless compared to the sophisticated lords of Delthuntle who did nothing but prepare for or attend various balls and who practiced dancing more than swordplay. But Wulfgar clearly didn’t care, nor did the wide-eyed—truly, it seemed as if she was panting—woman moving across the floor in his arms. And certainly none of these fancy lads in the room would find the courage to insult the imposing ambassador from Icewind Dale.

  Indeed, it seemed a fine play to the amused halfling.

  Another dancing couple, though, quickly garnered Regis’s attention. Donnola was dancing with a man Regis didn’t know, an older gentleman with silver hair, expensive robes and jewelry, and a fine bearing. She moved about up on his toes, as was convention when a halfling danced with a human in Delthuntle. He was stooped over low so his face was buried in Donnola’s pretty hair.

  “It is business,” a voice beside him startled Regis.

  He turned to see Wigglefingers holding a stemware glass of Zzar.

  “Lord Delcasio,” the mage explained, motio
ning to the man who hovered over Donnola. “When first we arrived, he begged Donnola for a dance, or more precisely, for an audience.”

  “Must he paw her so intimately?”

  “And whisper into her ear, I would expect,” said Wigglefingers.

  “Tell me about him.”

  “A merchant lord, mostly with business outside of Aglarond,” the mage answered. “Usually his queries have to do with the goings-on at the docks, with one shipment or another, and he is known to often complain about the pirates—though half of them are probably working for him, at least in part.”

  “He is looking for business with Icewind Dale, perhaps?”

  “No,” the mage said. “Lord Delcasio quietly related word of his desire for an audience before your smelly hill giant friend was ever announced to the courts.” The wizard looked past Regis then and snorted, and Regis turned to see Wulfgar slipping out of the room, and a cursory scan showed Regis that the woman Wulfgar had just been dancing with was nowhere to be seen.

  “I do expect that the next generation of Delthuntle nobles might be considerably larger in stature than the present,” the mage quipped. “Truly, is that all he does, eat and cavort?”

  “If he could, I expect,” Regis replied with a shrug and a smile—one that turned fast into a frown when he swung his head back around, surveying the dance floor as he did, and just in time to see this nobleman, Lord Delcasio, disappearing through a different door.

  “Business,” Wigglefingers assured him quietly. “Just business. Put away your petty jealousies, Master Parrafin, and remember the role of Lady Donnola.”

  Regis looked at him, about to argue, but the mage just shrugged and started away.

  “THE STAINS ARE her tears!” Lord Corrado Delcasio said, his own eyes showing gathering moisture as if he would soon add his own stains to the small parchment.

  Donnola again examined the letter he had handed her.

  “Oh, my dearest little daughter! What have I done?” The man stepped aside in the small anteroom off the main ballroom, dramatically throwing his arm across his face as if to hide his shame.

  Donnola reread Queen Concettina Delcasio Frostmantle’s letter and excused the overwrought lord for his emotional outburst. What father would not be concerned with such a note, after all?

  Dearest Papa,

  King Yarin grows angrier by the day. Each time I am visited by the cycle of blood, bloody too are his eyes and the face he wears seems not his own, but that of some demon come to Helgabal. He will have his heir, no matter how many wives he must discard to get it.

  I have seen the statues in the garden, my Lord and Father. They are headless, the way the last queens left this life. I see no way out of my prison here, for I cannot run away and I am a virtuous queen.

  In trust and love,

  Concy

  “Concy?” Donnola asked.

  “My name for her when she was a child,” Lord Delcasio replied, and the question seemed to work in drawing the man from his overwhelming grief.

  “You raised a fine woman, it would seem.”

  “Who plots to cuckold her husband?”

  You should hope so, Donnola thought but did not say. The halfling smiled and nodded, not ready to argue the point, though she figured that if she were in Concettina’s position, she would have long before thrown this ridiculous notion of virtue to the dung heaps of the court stable!

  Virtue? What matter virtue? The King of Damara was clearly going to execute her if she could not bear him a child, and given the renowned history of the troubled tyrant Yarin Frostmantle, it seemed quite clear to Donnola and to everyone else that the Damaran king needed his finger of blame to be twisted back around.

  “If Yarin …” Lord Delcasio started, but had to pause and take a deep breath. “I know King Yarin well. He is not a merciful man. If he became aware of this letter, my Concy …”

  “Why are you showing me this?” Donnola asked.

  The lord’s expression turned incredulous and desperate. “I knew Grandfather Pericolo well,” he said.

  “Grandfather Pericolo is dead.”

  “But Morada Topolino …”

  “Why is your daughter in the Bloodstone Lands?” Donnola asked, and the lord’s wince told her all she needed to know. Corrado had arranged his dear Concy’s marriage to this King Yarin Frostmantle, and now his mounting fears were being compounded by his guilt.

  “Please, Lady Donnola, I have few options.”

  “You would have me arrange a return letter to your lovely daughter?” she asked, and the man moaned.

  “An emissary, then?” she asked. “Do you desire a dowry paid for a proper and reasonable divorce?”

  “No, no …”

  “Have you tried?”

  “King Yarin cares more about his legacy than any wealth I could offer,” Lord Delcasio explained. “He properly divorced his earlier wives—with great sums collected from their merchant families—and more than one then proceeded to produce children. His embarrassment was great, I assure you.”

  “But Damara is a long way from Delthuntle.”

  “And whispers travel faster than speeding dragons.”

  Donnola nodded, unable to refute that truth—indeed, it was one upon which Donnola was trying to build her fortune and power.

  “Please, lady.”

  “I do not understand what you would expect that I could do, Lord Delcasio. I am merely a socialite of Delthuntle …”

  “I knew Grandfather Pericolo!” Lord Delcasio cried.

  “Grandfather Pericolo is dead. And I implore you to keep your voice down.”

  “Lady!” He came forward a step with an intimidating posture, almost threatening.

  But Donnola fixed him with such a stare as to freeze the blood in his veins, a not-subtle reminder that she had been trained by the very halfling, Grandfather of Assassins Pericolo, whom Delcasio kept telling her he knew so well.

  “I … I …” he stammered, easing back a bit.

  “And, wait, but you knew, too, of King Yarin’s history, of course,” Donnola reasoned. She held up Concettina’s note as an accusation. “You knew of the headless statues in Yarin’s gardens? Surely this is not news to a man as impeccable and prepared as Lord Corrado Delcasio.”

  “I had faith in my daughter.”

  “You had greed in your heart,” Donnola accused. She didn’t want to emotionally bludgeon the already-battered man, but she needed to back him off here and calm him down. Delcasio was about one step from feeling the bite of Donnola’s poisoned dagger, after all, and that would have done neither of them any good.

  “Lady, I implore you,” he said, clearly back under control—and Donnola silently congratulated herself. “I have no other moves to play. Concettina is no child, and no overly emotional fool. Her tears are on that note.”

  “Rain, more likely, or spray from the journey across the sea.”

  “The risk she took in penning it …”

  Donnola conceded the point with a nod. “But still I do not understand what you would wish from me, or from Morada Topolino. We are merchants, nothing more.”

  “I want you to kill him,” Lord Delcasio said bluntly.

  “Kill him? Who? King Yarin?” she asked with obvious skepticism.

  “Grandfather Pericolo would do so, and did so, many times,” Lord Delcasio insisted, not backing down. “He was a halfling of severe justice, and is this which I beg of you not just?”

  “Pericolo Topolino was a wealthy halfling,” Donnola said.

  “I have great coin to offer.”

  “You are asking me to murder a king,” she said. “Perhaps there is not enough coin in all of Faerûn.”

  “Well … then I care not if you kill Yarin,” the desperate man improvised. “I do not even hold him in contempt.”

  Donnola did well to hide her sneer at that remark. This man, this father, was willing to accept another man whom he thought about to murder his own daughter? To Donnola’s thinking, Lord Delcasio’s las
t admission had just erased any sympathy she might hold for him, and so the lord had just unwittingly raised the price, considerably.

  “Just rescue her,” Lord Delcasio pleaded.

  Donnola spent a long while staring at the downcast lord, formulating a plan and weighing the consequences. “I will see if I can fathom a way,” she said.

  “The reward will be great!” Lord Delcasio blurted, and in his great relief, he came forward with his arms out wide for a hug. “A hundred pieces of gold!”

  Donnola ducked the hug and skipped around behind him. “That very amount in each of the ten shipments to Morada Topolino,” she said as a surprised Delcasio swung about, his mouth falling open.

  “And The Aardvark,” Donnola added, referring to one of the finest caravels of Delthuntle, one under the flag of Lord Delcasio, and the man’s eyes popped open wide.

  “L-lady …” he stuttered.

  “And her crew,” Donnola insisted. “You ask me to anger a king, after all.”

  “But …”

  “Oh, I know of Yarin Frostmantle, Lord Delcasio,” explained Donnola, who indeed knew many details of all the nobles of the eastern and northern reaches of the Sea of Fallen Stars. “I knew of him when you handed over your beautiful daughter, you fool.”

  “I-I had faith in her,” he stammered.

  “So claimed several fathers before you,” she retorted. “I am sure that your daughter is quite fertile. Do you think that matters?”

  A clearly defeated Lord Delcasio visibly slumped.

  “Do we have a deal?” Donnola asked. “A thousand pieces of gold and The Aardvark.”

  “You can get her out of Damara? You can bring my beautiful Concy home?”

  “If I cannot, then I will arrange for a proxy to make her with child,” Donnola said. “Let King Yarin believe the child is his own—he will shower her with jewels and your fears will be assuaged. In that event, half the gold, and still I take The Aardvark.”