“Hah! That must be you, mage! My Rune would never submit to tyranny without fighting and shouting about it every moment she could draw breath!”

Behind the angry lordling, Amarune and Elminster saw Storm dislocate one of her shoulders with a twisting thrust and a grimace of pain. That loosened the swordbelt enough that she could wriggle in painful silence, pull and slide out of Arclath’s tight strapping, leaving the belt clinging to the shirt she left behind.

She rolled over with slow, infinite care, as bare as the day she was born and in utter silence, keeping her injured shoulder from harm. She kept rolling, across the furs and blankets to the hearth.

Elminster tried again-and this time felt Amarune in full agreement with him. He let her take over her voice midword, hoping he wouldn’t regret it.

“Arclath Delcastle,” he began severely, “how do you”-she took over so smoothly that there wasn’t the slightest hitch in the angry sentence-“know what I would do? I pleasure men for a living, remember? I do so because I need to eat, and to keep from freezing in Suzailan winters; I’ve never been able to afford the principles you cloak me with!”

At the hearth, Storm wasn’t reaching for any weapon nor doing anything at all to cover herself or tend to her shoulder. She was-El had to quell Rune’s disbelieving stare-making tea.

“You’re not my Rune,” Arclath snapped. “Fancy words for a mask dancer, wizard! You’ll have to do better than that!”

In their shared mind, Amarune’s anger flared. She tugged at El for control of all her body, and he yielded it. This should be good.

“Arclath, are you truly so foolish? Or just too angry to think? Do you really believe a glib tongue, cogent arguments, and cultured words belong only to the highborn and a few courtiers? Are we beasts to you, barely able to do more than grunt and snort? We unwashed citizens who are your dupes, your servants, your slaves? For that matter, have you any idea what mask dancers-gods spit, what any two-coin pleasure lass-get to overhear, in any given season? I am Amarune Whitewave!”