"Drink," Mirt bade gruffly. "'Tis fine. Nothing but the finest horsepiss do we serve young noble visitors wise enough to know how dunderheaded they are! I grow older and thirstier by the breath, so out with it, lad: what troubles ye?"

Korvaun grimaced. "Dyre's furious with us. He said all of us reach a time when consequences can no longer be laughed away, and that his friends-all the merchants and shopkeepers of the city-would be watching us. He made it sound like the city was two steps away from rising to butcher all nobles!"

Mirt took a swig from his decanter, sighed in appreciation, and asked it, "Did he, now? How unusually candid of him. Ye should be grateful he managed to speak so bluntly, instead of trailing off into cursing the way most of us coarse lowborn do. I hope ye remembered more of his words than just that much."

Korvaun found that his mouth had fallen open. Uncomfortably aware of the weight of the Old Wolf's gaze, Korvaun murmured, "I'd never considered before that the commoners might get angry at, well, the way of things."

Mirt's gaze turned mocking, and Korvaun found himself burning with embarrassment.

"I mean, at what we young nobles have always done-pranks and swordplay and jollity. The common folk always just seemed to-"

"Get out of the way as best they could, an' otherwise just stand and take it?"

"Well, yes. Exactly. And yet I see it, now: they're right to be furious. We smash what they can ill afford to lose, and our jests mock them even when we don't mean to… and yet most of the time we do."

Mirt nodded. "The road to being deeply loved, no?"

"No," Korvaun agreed a little grimly, and drank.

Liquid fire promptly ran up his nose as well as down his gullet, and left him sputtering.

The Old Wolf chuckled, deftly plucked the decanter from failing Helmfast hands, and dealt Korvaun a slap on the back that would have led to prompt face-first disaster if he hadn't also raised the knuckles of his decanter-holding hand like a wall in front of Korvaun's chest.

Korvaun wiped away tears and croaked, "What is this… stuff?"

"Firebelly. 'Tis all the rage in the pirate ports, an' goes well with the strongest cheese. Makes your breath sweet, clears out the pipes-as ye've found-an' is very good for ye."

Through still-watery eyes Korvaun found Mirt grinning at him, and gasped, "Are you drinking it, too?"

"Of course I am, ye silly man; I have some professional ethics. So it's dawned on ye at last that the common folk of our fair city might be discontented an' have cause to be. An' now?"

"An uprising would be terrible. It must be forestalled, and you… are of common birth, wise to the streets, and yet are… well, widely rumored to be-"

Mirt's eyes were bright and steady, offering no aid at all, and Korvaun wallowed in blushing embarrassment for a breath or two ere he managed to blurt: "-a Lord of Waterdeep!"

"Well, now. Rumors can be such ugly things, can they not?"

"So can truths," Korvaun told him quietly. "Nobles learn that much, at least. Even when secrets…" He paused, wondering just how to say what was in his thoughts.

"Are such fun, an' the game that all your elders are playing?" Mirt asked, his voice very dry.

Their gazes met squarely. After a moment, Korvaun nodded.

"Merchants are no different from nobles when it comes to secrets," the Old Wolf said gruffly, reaching down behind his chair to bring up a second decanter. "'Tis just that more of our secrets are about money. Nobles have more idle time to play at pride an' betrayal, but your biggest, sharpest secrets are all about coins, too. Inheritance, hidden debts, obligations, trade-ties gone wrong; all of that."

"All of that," Korvaun agreed. "So what should be done-no, what can I do-to take the commoners a step back from their anger?"

Mirt unstoppered his new decanter, sniffed it, and asked the stopper curiously, "Why should ye do anything?"

"Well, if we nobles are the cause, we must be the ones to make amends, and it seems fairly clearly that we are the cause."

"Ye've taken the first stride already, young lord: ye've admitted that, an' seen Waterdeep differently because of it. Now, if ye could bring your young friends around to the same view…"

"I'll do that!" Korvaun said with sudden fire. "I'll go and tell-"

"No," Mirt growled, "ye'll not."

The youngest Lord Helmfast blinked at him. "Whyever not?"

"No one ever convinced a hot-headed young noble of anything-at least, not one who still keeps his brains in his codpiece an' hasn't yet had his teeth handed back to him by the world-by talking to him. Ye rush in with your jaw flapping, an' they'll listen an' think poor Korvaun's gone straight into gods-mazed idiocy, an' can safely be ridiculed or humored but either way ignored. Events have to bring your fellow lordlings around to seeing this for themselves."

"'Events'? Like a city-wide riot?"

The retort brought a slow smile to Mirt's lips. "No, that'd make them see foes to stick their fancy blades through. I was thinking more the sort of 'hard lesson' events that knock sense into us all, events that sometimes-just sometimes, mind ye-can be nudged into happening by, well, by a young nobleman who's almost half as clever as he thinks he is. The sort of events that your mother an' every other woman her age learned long ago."

Korvaun frowned. "I beg your-?"

"Nay, ye do nothing of the kind. Ye look for a challenge, if ye beg my pardon or anything else in that tone. Stop thinking with your pride for just a breath an' see what I'm saying: now, don't all the noble ladies ye know, young and old, arrange things to make their menfolk or brothers or sons react in some way they'd like? Get angry an' insist on something, mayhap? Or regard some matter as touching the honor of the House, an' thus demanding the opposite response from them than they'd said they'd give, a little earlier?"

Korvaun nodded. "I see," he said, and did. "Yes."

"Good. The gods smile on us both this day," Mirt said briskly. "Now, how many coins d'ye want?"

"I know not, yet. Master Dyre said he'd send us an accounting."

"An' ye can send word to me, an' I'll have coins or tradebars or both ready here for your hands-your hands, mind, not some servant or fellow lordling-to claim."

Mirt's second decanter was almost empty. Korvaun regarded him in some amazement. He was fat, yes, but this firebelly stuff! The man should be slurring his words at least by now! Korvaun started to stammer thanks.

One large and hairy hand shot out in a silencing wave. "'Tis the least I can do to help such a rare breed: a noble who sees the city so clearly an' cares about what meets his eyes. Yet I can do something more, an' believe I will. If Waterdeep needed ye, would ye answer the call?"

Korvaun blinked. "But of course-"

That large, silencing hand worked its power again. "If I asked ye to do a service-large or small, perilous or seemingly silly-for our city, would ye? Dropping all else an' with no thought of fame nor reward?"

The youngest Lord Helmfast met the old moneylender's gaze squarely and said quietly, "Yes. This I swear."

"Good. Fix in your memory, then, two words: 'searchingstar' and 'stormbird.' Got them?"

"I-searchingstar? "

"Aye, and stormbird."

Korvaun nodded.

"Good," the Old Wolf said again. "Now remember also this: if a stranger says 'searchingstar' to ye, ye're to get yourself here as fast as your legs can bring you an' say 'searchingstar' to whoever answers the door. If some stranger instead says 'stormbird' to ye, do the same-but bring whatever friend ye've confided in."

"Friend? You suggest I'd confide in-"

Mirt made a rude sound. "However hard ye swear to the contrary, here an' now, ye'll tell a friend all about this. Young, excited lads always do."