Lidia slipped a gold piece and three closed envelopes over the counter at the booth at the messengers' station just outside the Promenade.
"Very good, miss." A large, grayish hand closed over all of them. Its owner, a tall half-orc, put the letters into a file and the money into a slot inside an ornate, cast-iron strongbox. "These should find their way west in about five days."
Lidia thought again how much more convenient a couple of Sending spells would be, but she said nothing besides polite thanks.
They left, threading their way aimlessly among the crowd, passing one of the grand stone arches that led to the Promenade.
"Well, where to next?" Jaheira asked.
"I feel I have a better idea of what it might take to forge my path in a place like this, even though the circumstances are less than ideal," Lidia said. Suddenly embarrassed, with a gnawing in the pit of her stomach, her eyes wandered towards the Promenade's stone walls. "There's…there's more death than I would have wanted, certainly."
"I see you have given this some thought," Jaheira replied with a faint smile. "I only meant, was there anything else you wished to do while we were here?"
"It's best if we don't linger too long, I think," Lidia said. "I can think of at least four or five things I should take care of before heading to the keep tomorrow."
"Perhaps you could spare an hour or two from being a human whirlwind, yes?" Jaheira said. "Have you even sat down for the last several tendays?"
"Jaheira, I'm fine."
Jaheira turned back to Lidia and raised her eyebrows, then pulled Lidia aside to an empty spot outside a small brokerage.
"I've seen you deal with one trying situation by throwing yourself into the next one, but it all catches up to you eventually," Jaheira said. "Gorion warned me that you were somewhat restless; that was an understatement if I heard one. He would haunt me to the end of my days if he knew I'd allowed you to run yourself ragged."
"Fine. So what do you have in mind?" Lidia asked.
"For the next hour or two, we shall do absolutely nothing of substance."
Lidia knew Jaheira had spent time in Athkatla, but she hadn't realized how much. Jaheira expertly flitted from one point of interest in the Promenade to the next with Lidia in tow, navigating the swirl of people as deftly as the runners from building to building did.
They went down one row of booths on the Promenade floor, curiously investigating the wares for sale with no intention of buying. They watched a small clump of brightly-colored street performers juggle swords, swallow fire, perform acrobatic tricks atop a tamed owlbear, and shoot harmless will-o'-the-wisps into an eagerly watching crowd. Lidia and Jaheira even lingered in the small zoo near where Quayle's tent once stood, watching the bored-looking animals idly play in their cages, but they chose not to stay there for long.
Eventually, they ended up sitting around the rim of a tall fountain outside another stone gateway to the Promenade. As Jaheira put it, this was an ideal spot for people-watching. On a fine spring day like this one, all the entryways were a cacophony of languages, colors, and shapes; it seemed all the Realms converged here.
Most seemed engaged in buying and selling, but some were here to see and be seen. Here and there, nobles strolled or rode in and out under heavy guard and with an entourage following them. But near this entrance, two voices raised, with all the enthusiasm of town criers:
"This whole place was built on our backs, and on our backs, it flows a river of gold to the rich!"
"If the Council expects us to kill and die for them, why are they too cowardly to show us their faces?"
Two, one a man and one a male dwarf, stood near the door, handing out sheaves of paper to anyone willing to take one. Both wore a simple tunic and pants, their feet bare and callused.
The man called, frantically waving a sheet, "See the latest from The Voice of Thunder! Killings in the Docks District! Kobold meat passed off as beef in the Bridge District! Children stolen on the Trade Way and sold into slavery! And does the Council do anything about it?"
He was likely expecting a "no," but none of the crowd of two dozen or so gathering around him was willing to give him one.
One listener, a matronly noblewoman of about forty, pushed her way forward to the front, her bright blue skirt skimming the stones on the road. "Sir," she said, her voice nearly loud enough to match his, "all this is naught but rumor, and your solution to all of this is naught but overreach by those who cannot conceive how the river flows, let alone how to navigate it."
The white feather in her pink turban quivered as she continued: "You strike at the core of what makes Athkatla the premier city of the Sword Coast. We are strong because the Council knows not to interfere with business. How can we hope to compete with Waterdeep, for example, if they started meddling?"
The dwarf glanced past the woman and started running, discarding the papers he carried into the gathering crowd, and disappeared among the people flowing in and out of the Promenade.
But the man would not be moved and declaimed further: "At least in Waterdeep, one lord is bold enough to rule openly, bold enough to show that he's not in the pocket of slavers and spellfiddlers!" He tried to start a chant, emphasizing the first and last word with a pump of his fist: "Show us the Six! Show us the Six!"
Someone in the gathered crowd mouthed the words here and there, but none dared to raise their voices.
Lidia started to rise from her spot, but Jaheira stopped her.
"No need," Jaheira said. "The guard is handling it."
Hesitatingly, Lidia sat down. The guards in black livery broke through the crowd, roughly carrying the man away without much struggle, and the aggrieved noblewoman handed their captain a coin.
Jaheira said, "Normally, political discourse of this kind is forbidden near the Promenade. I have to wonder whether the agitator was outbid. If that is the case, it was not by much."
"How can you tell?" Lidia asked.
"The woman handed the money to the guard herself, first of all. Second, if you happened to glance at her slippers, she had leather soles sewn on; the closest that shoe is meant to get to soil is the floor of a carriage. Third, she is wearing a turban made from fine Myratman silk, but the style — see the folds shaped like a rose? — is at least two or three years old, when she would be expected to wear something from last fall at the latest."
And yet, Lidia observed, this woman had spent some of her money to remove the disturbance from the streets and was earning nods of approval all around for it. It wasn't so much the amount she spent, but the fact that she had done so.
Lidia knew that putting up a show was hardly unique to Athkatla. But in this city, especially when it involved flinging one's coin around, people here seemed more invested in the play, in the appearance...
She started, sitting up in sudden realization.
"What is it?" Jaheira asked.
Lidia looked about her, then leaned in, whispering, "I think I've figured out how to bring the Baron's allies around."