Robert Asprin - Blood Ties

Aside from his bronze-red moustache and ruddy face, a quite drab man despite the handsome tunic of Croyite blue. He still wore that odd, napped skull-covering cap, too.

Jaunt stood nearby, saddled and bridled anew-with worn old leather that had been unremarkable even when new-and wearing a smaller version of the traveler's pack. Shield and the big sword were not in evidence.

"Left a few things inside," he said, so quietly and half apologetically.

"Good," Fulcris said, and introduced the wealthy man and the two women.

All three of them looked dressed for court. The not-unhandsome man in matching tunic and leggings of yellow-green silk wore a fine cloak of a blue so pale it was nearly white-not from age or wear. Strick was polite, greeting each woman with a little inclining of his head, speaking quietly as ever. The bosomy, steatopygous one in pink to the collarbones, along with garnets set in silver, was the wife of this Sanctuarite nobleman. Chest on her like a shelf for displaying fine glassware, Fulcris thought. The lean, dimply young blonde in blue, Fulcris saw, was interested in Strick. Despite both his and Strick's efforts to avoid it, she rode beside the big man with the bronze moustache as they walked their horses the sixth of a league or so to the city walls.

"Where are you from, Strick?" Her voice was girlish and her dimples glorious.

"North."

She shot him a look. "Oh. Do you intend to settle in Sanctuary?"

"Might."

After a few moments of silence, she tried again: "Will you, uh, go into business here, Strick?"

"I'm considering it."

Riding in front of them beside the wealthy Noble Shafra-lain of Sanctuary just back from a lengthy stay in Aurvesh, Fulcris smiled. The Noble Shafralain's doubtless noble wife was chattering away about what son of shape the house might be in. The lean young blonde had gone silent, doubtless wracking her brain for a way to get Strick to converse. Politeness forbade her pursuing any of the previous questions, since he apparently was not minded to volunteer any information on those subjects.

At last her voice piped again: "Do you know where you plan to stay, Strick?"

"I don't know, my lady. Perhaps-"

"Oh goodness, Strick, do call me Esaria!"

A glance to his left showed Fulcris how Noble Shafralain's well-molded face went grim in disapproval. From behind them the quiet voice spoke as if Strick had seen that expression: "Perhaps you could suggest an inn, my lady Esaria. It need not be the city's fanciest!"

"Oh. Father-would you recommend an inn to this traveler from afar?"

"My dear," the silken-cloaked man beside Fulcris said stiffly, "we do not know this foreigner's means. The prices of Sanctuary's inns vary as greatly as the quality of their food. The Golden Oasis, I should say, is our best."

"Oh darling, it's been so long-let's do take dinner there tonight!"

"A moment, Expimilia," Shafralain said, with mild impatience.

"I am from Firaqa to the northwest. Noble Sir, and hardly of your means. What are second- and third-best?"

Fulcris smiled.

"Could we do that, darling? I really don't relish opening the house just in time to have to eat there! Who knows what the servants have done with the place-and what shape the larder's in!"

Fulcris's smile broadened at Lady Expimilia's importun-ings.

Her husband continued to stare straight ahead, chin nobly high. Without turning so much as his head in replying to the man riding behind him where Shafralain doubtless thought he belonged, he named two other inns.

"A grateful foreigner's thanks," Strick said, with only the hint of stress on the third word.

"Are we going to sup at the Golden Oasis, Father?"

"For all we know," Shafralain said, this time with a slight turning of his head, "the Golden Oasis has been destroyed, or sadly damaged."

"I'd be glad to ride straight there and have a look," Esaria said. "I'd be perfectly safe, too; Strick would ride with me, wouldn't you, Strick?"

"That," her father said, "will not be possible."

They rode in silence, approaching the wall of Sanctuary. Abruptly the nobleman's noble wife turned partway around and spoke in a determinedly pleasant voice.

"Well, Strick of Firaqa, will you please escort me to the Golden Oasis? Yes, Esaria, you may come along. Aral," she said to her husband in a different voice, "we will be fine and will join you later at home."

The Noble Shafralain gave his wife a long, slow stare.

"My lady," Strick said softly, "I regret that I already have other plans."

"Oh-h!" Esaria said, in clear exasperation. Obviously Strick had chosen diplomacy and deference to her father over touching off family problems.

For the first time, Shafralain turned to give the foreigner a fleeting glance. It was not an unpleasant look.

"Firaqa," he said, turning back. "Firaqa... oh. That where the pearls come from?"

"Aye."

"Freshwater pearls," Expimilia exclaimed. "Of course! Firaqan Souls of the Oyster!" Abruptly she half-turned to look at the quiet man. "You didn't come here to sell any of those beauties, did you?"

Shafralain snorted. Strick made a chuckling noise. "Sorry, my lady."

They entered the city and within a few hundred feet were accosted by two young men. Each wore a cloth band of the same color around his upper arm and bore a crossbow in addition to sheathed sword.

"Welcome to Sanctuary! You will need a pass in this area, gentle travelers," one glibly told them. "We offer five armbands for two pieces of silver."

"A pass!" Shafralain snapped. "Likelier you'll be ridden down! Since when does the Noble Shafralain need to wear a dirty patch of cloth in order to move through his own city?"

The faces of their accosters underwent unpleasant changes. The one who had not spoken stepped back and showed that his crossbow was cocked. Passersby were carefully not-seeing the tense encounter. Most wore brassards matching those the two youths wore and offered for sale.

"Since quite awhile, Noble," the spokesman said. "Maybe you left town when things got nasty last year and're just coming back, hmm? See, citizen security is sort of divided up amidst serveral pertection groups, and we just can't gamtee yer safety here without but you're wearing onea these handsome armbands."

"Oh, I think they're quite pretty armbands really," Esaria said.

Her mother said, "If it's what people are wearing this season. .."

Shafralain, however, was Shafralain: "You threaten us, fellow?"

"Here is a piece of silver," a quiet voice said. "It should suffice. See that nothing happens to these people, whether they consent to wear your armbands or no. I will."

"So will I," the surprised Fulcris heard himself say, even as they heard the ring of silver off a thumbnail and saw the young man before him throw up a hand to catch Strick's coin.

He examined it. "Huh! Never seen onea these before. What's this on it, a fire? Whur's it from at?"

"Firaqa," Strick told him. "Way up northwest. Not part of Ranke's Empire. Mints its own coins, with the sign of the Flame. It will spend; it's silver."

Immediately after his last word came the sound of his clucking to his horse. Fulcris swallowed, but at once made the same sound in his cheek. That worked; the horses moved forward and the two accosters stepped back on either side. The speaker extended a number of armbands.

"Pleasure doing business with you," he told Strick, as the latter accepted the "passes."

"Fulcris," Strick said, and passed one to the caravaner. "Noble Shafralain?"

The nobleman would not turn or glance at the proffering hand. "I had far rather chop the arm off that arrogant snot than put one of his dirty rags on my arm!"

"Me too," Strick said, equably as ever. "But while we did that, the other would have flicked his trigger and sent a crossbow bolt into... one of us."