A hard, sudden rain was lashing the rooftops of Sirlptar as the came down, driven ashore by a home-harbor wind. The storm rattle on the slates and tiles of hundreds of roofs quite drowned out the customary chimney-sighs for which the Sighing Gargoyle was named. Flaeros Delcamper could barely hear his own harp notes, but—newly esteemed bard to the court of Flowfoam or not—this was his first paying engagement in the City of River and Sea, and he sang on with determination.
Yet even he knew, as he lifted his voice in the refrain of his newest ballad about the Lady of Jewels and the Fall of the Serpent, that he might just as well have saved his breath. Not a man-jack was listening.
Every patron of the Gargoyle was bent forward over the table that held his tankard, listening—or talking—intently. The mutter of voices held no note of happiness.
“And so ’tis another year gone, and how’s Aglirta the better for it?”
“Aye, harvests thinner than ever, half the good men in the land dead and rotting when they should be plowing or scything-and now we have a boy for a king!”
“Huh. No joy there, yet he can hardly be worse than what we’ve had, these twenty summers now—wizards and barons, wizards and barons: villains, all!”
