The old minstrel shook his head. ” ‘Tis hard to believe, lad,” he said to the depths of his empty tankard,
“even for such as us. Legends come to life—four vagabond adventurers, one of them the Lady of Jewels with her spells swirling around her like fire, rousing the Lost King back to us.”
Flaeros Delcamper nodded, eyes shining. “I know,” he almost babbled, “but it did befall, just as I’ve said!
I was there! I stood in the throne room on Flowfoam Isle and saw the barons kneel to the Risen King!”
His voice was rising, he knew, but Flaeros cared not. So what if the remembered thrill made him babble? He was home in Ragalar, in the tankard-hung back room of the Old Lion, and the man across the table from him had been house minstrel to the Delcampers for near a century, and tutor to Flaeros since he’d been a muddy-faced boy.
Old Baergin smiled and shook his head again in disbelief, even though all Darsar had heard by now that the king had returned to Aglirta, and a shining future of peace and prosperity could well be opening up before every last jack and lady who saw the sun rise and the moon fall.
The hands that had guided the fumbling fingers of Flaeros on their first tentative pluckings at harp-strings and travels up and down pipes set down their tankard, and their owner asked softly, “So what of these famous Four now, lad? What was the last you saw of them?”
