"As everyone knows," Beldar said wearily, "he's a Lord of Waterdeep. But come now, Korvaun- advice? Even assuming the truth of that old rumor, what wisdom can fall from the mouth of that puffing, strutting old pirate?"

"You might be surprised," Korvaun said quietly. "I was."

For a long moment his two friends stared at him. Taeros found his voice first. "You have much to tell us."

"On the way to Mirt's Mansion," Beldar added, striding to the door. Taeros and Korvaun hurried in his wake, cloaks swirling.

They found Starragar Jardeth in his favorite gambling house. The Eagleshield brothers, both still bearing evidence of their recent battle on Starragar's behalf, threw down their cards and urged him to join his fellow Gemcloaks. A carriage ride and a brisk walk later, Taeros was beginning to understand why.

Starragar was besmitten. Every woman they passed gave him fresh reason to praise his lady's charms. This lass had a form almost as lithe as Phandelopae Melshimber, and that one's face, though lovely enough, wasn't half so fair. Yonder spill of dark hair echoed hers, but wasn't near so long and lustrous…

Taeros would never have thought it possible, but it was almost a relief when they entered Dock Ward, and Starragar's rhapsodies gave way to his usual litany of complaints.

Beldar strode on ahead, oblivious to his friend's grumbling, leaving Taeros and Korvaun to keep Starragar's incendiary comments from sending sparks into all-too-ready tinder.

"Gods above!" Starragar snarled as the Gemcloaks dodged around another pair of apparently abandoned handcarts. "Don't these lowlife idiots know this is supposed to be a street?"

They were still a lane or three away from Mirt's Mansion, on a busy street that reeked of fish guts. It was all cobbles and puddles and hurrying folk, most of whom were carrying crates or kegs or wheeling creaking carts.

Right in front of them, a fat, puffing little man tipped his delivery handcart upright, kicked its axle-prop down, and pulled free a wheel-pin and the wheel it held in one smooth, expert movement. Unlocking the iron cage that held the goods on his cart, he took one wooden delivery box from among a dozen, hung wheel and pin on their hooks, slammed and locked the cage down over everything and trotted into a shop to make a delivery, all as swiftly as an angry nobleman might draw his sword.

Starragar stared at this deft dance in astonishment, then started to look as if he might just be that proverbial angry nobleman. Taeros and Korvaun hissed "Come on!" in urgent unison and hustled him past, around a larger cart piled high with wet, noisome crates of eels, and between another pair of handcarts.

"This is how coins flow in our city," Korvaun murmured. "Deliver fast, yes? When you call for fresh wine, you expect it at your door before next dining, right?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"But nothing. The man locks his goods and wheel. That strut on the cage makes sure the prop can't be kicked over by some prankster. The only way he can suffer theft while he's gone is if enough beefy lads together lift and carry the thing, which would hardly be worth the effort."

"All right," Starragar snapped, pointing at a large conveyance pulled by sweating men, that was just drawing to a halt, "but what's that?"

"Rental carriage. Shuttered, so it's someone who doesn't want the whole city to know they're coming down here-see? Lady Sultlue!"

Starragar whistled. "So it's true, she does-"

His attention was caught by a clumsily painted signboard, nailed askew over a door.

"Gamelder's Quaffhouse?" he asked incredulously, peering at the barred-window, ramshackle warehouse beside him. "This is what passes for a tavern in Dock Ward?"

He surveyed sagging roof and blackened boards with an open sneer. "I wouldn't deign to spew my guts in a place like this! Fancy downing a drink that's been poured in such squalor! Why, there're prob-"

"We're almost at the moneylender's," Taeros said loudly, taking Starragar's arm and peering through gaps in the broken window-boards behind the bars, at unfriendly faces-with bad teeth-glaring out at them. "If we hurry-"

"It looks like a fire-damaged warehouse," Korvaun put in hastily, taking Starragar's other elbow and steering him away, "because it is a fire-damaged warehouse. If rented out as a tavern, the rent just might make coin enough to pay for a new warehouse, see? There're many such taverns this end of the city. Now-"

Starragar growled, shook off their hands, and strode on down the littered street, muttering.

Too late.

The quaffhouse door banged open, and a dozen sailors charged out, fists and bottles flying. Korvaun had to dive desperately over the nearest handcart to avoid losing his life right there and then.

Taeros sprang away, trying to draw his sword and shouting a warning. Beldar whirled around, saw the onrushing sailors, and grinned with what Taeros, stumbling on the cobbles as women and barefoot boys shrieked all around him in excitement, could only describe as "savage glee."

Starragar, too, seemed pleased, and drew his blade with a flourish. "For honor, for glory, for Phandelopae!" he howled.

In the time it took Taeros to roll his eyes, his view of Lords Jardeth and Roaringhorn was lost behind dozens of burly, dirty sailors. Right behind them came some calloused laborers whose grinning faces were familiar.

Taeros Hawkwinter had last seen them in a worksite on Redcloak Lane, dodging among boards and scaffolding.

"Oh, Lady Luck, kiss all Gemcloaks now" he whispered fervently.

"Aye, Marlus is better'n most," a trustyhand growled, thumping his chipped mug down on the windowsill to join his elbows. "I know crews as never gets a day off and don't see coin enough to drink even in a place like this!"

"Hey, now!" one of the burly, hard-faced men behind the bar called angrily. "You want fancy lasses, you go up the street and pay three nibs for brew with a lot more water in it than this!"

"Aye," a sailor called back, from beside the trustyhands who worked for Marlus the carpenter, "but there, they don't use the water ye've scaled the fish into."

The man behind the bar scowled and drew back an empty mug threateningly, as if to hurl it. Then he took quick measure of the six or seven sailors turning to face him with the grim grins of men spoiling for a fight, despite a collection of scars that would have impressed any priestess of Loviatar or priest of Ilmater, and turned away.

The sailors had barely started to jeer when another of their number, the foremastman of the Glorious Goblet out of Athkatla and the owner of the fastest fists in the crew, pointed out through the broken window-slats and barked, "Hey! Coupla fancynoses coming, see?"

"No!" the steersman beside him corrected. "Four strutting codpieces, unbearded lads all, a-holding their noses and sneering at the likes of us. Well now-"

Others peered, and chuckled eagerly.

"Let's be rearranging those noses for 'em-and whatever else we can reach of 'em, besides!" someone called.

Whereupon the trustyhand who'd worked for Marlus the longest let out a sudden roar. "'Tis them, lads! The ones as put swords to us at Dyre's site an' had our rig down! Get them!"

This became a general chorus, and the window-counter emptied in an instant, wooden mugs bouncing off walls, floors, and nearby patrons.

"Loins of the Lion!" a Calishite sailor growled, clutching his bruised head.

"S'why we make 'em of wood, sealord," one of the barmen told him laconically, retrieving the mug that had done the damage. "Else ye'd be picking glass shards out of yer brain right now by way of your nose, eh?"