David Eddings - The Complete Elenium Trilogy - The Diamond Throne, The Ruby Knight, The Sapphire Rose

Sparhawk led the small Styric woman out through the gate and into the side street beyond.

‘He turns everything into a joke, doesn’t he?’ Sephrenia observed.

‘Most things, yes. He’s been laughing at the world since he was a boy. I think that’s why I like him so much. My view of things tends to be a little more bleak, and he helps me keep my perspective.’

They rode on through the now-teeming streets of Chyrellos. Although many local merchants affected the sombre black of churchmen, visitors usually did not, and their bright clothing stood out by contrast. Travellers from Cammoria in particular were highly colourful, since their customary silk garments did not fade with the passage of time and remained brightly red or green or blue.

The market place to which Sephrenia led him was some distance from the chapterhouse, and it was perhaps three-quarters of an hour before they reached it.

‘How did you find this shopkeeper?’ Sparhawk asked.

‘There are certain staples in the Styric diet,’ she replied. ‘Elenes don’t eat those things very often.’

‘I thought you said that this porter delivered some sides of meat.’

‘Goat, Sparhawk. Elenes don’t care much for goat.’

He shuddered.

‘How provincial you are,’ she said lightly. ‘If it doesn’t come from a cow, you won’t eat it.’

‘I suppose it’s what you’re used to.’

‘I’d better go to the shop alone,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you’re a bit intimidating, dear one. We want answers from the porter, and we might not get them if you frighten him. Watch my horse.’ She handed him her reins and then moved off through the market. Sparhawk watched as she went across the bustling square to speak with a shabby-looking fellow in a blood-smeared canvas smock. After a short time she returned. He got down and helped her back onto her horse.

‘Did he tell you where the house is?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘It’s not far – near the east gate.’

‘Let’s go have a look.’

As they started out, Sparhawk did something uncharacteristically impulsive. He reached out and took the small woman’s hand. ‘I love you, little mother,’ he told her.

‘Yes,’ she said calmly, ‘I know. It’s nice of you to say it, though.’ Then she smiled. It was an impish little smile that somehow reminded him of Flute. ‘Another lesson for you, Sparhawk,’ she said. ‘When you’re having dealings with a woman, you cannot say “I love you” too often.’

‘I’ll remember that. Does the same thing apply to Elene women?’

‘It applies to all women, Sparhawk. Gender is a far more important distinction than race.’

‘I shall be guided by you, Sephrenia.’

‘Have you been reading medieval poetry again?’

‘Me?’

They rode through the market place and on into the run-down quarter near the east gate of Chyrellos. While not perhaps the same as the slums of Cimmura, this part of the holy city was far less opulent than the area around the Basilica. There was less colour here, for one thing. The tunics of the men in the street were uniformly drab, and the few merchants there were in the crowd wore garments which were faded and threadbare. They did, however, have the self-important expressions which all merchants, successful or not, automatically assume. Then, at the far end of the street, Sparhawk saw a short man in a lumpy, unbleached smock of homespun wool. ‘Styric,’ he said shortly.

Sephrenia nodded and drew up the hood of her white robe so that it covered her face. Sparhawk straightened in his saddle and carefully assumed an arrogant, condescending expression such as the servant of some important personage might wear. They passed the Styric, who stepped cautiously aside without paying them any particular heed. Like all members of his race, the Styric had dark, almost black, hair and a pale skin. He was shorter than the Elenes who passed him in this narrow street, and the bones in his face were prominent, as if he had somehow not quite been completed.

‘Zemoch?’ Sparhawk asked after they had passed the man.

‘It’s impossible to say,’ Sephrenia replied.

‘Is he concealing his identity with a spell?’

She spread her hands helplessly. ‘There’s no way to tell, Sparhawk. Either he’s just an ordinary backwoods Styric with nothing on his mind but his next meal, or he’s a very subtle magician who’s playing the bumpkin to block out attempts to probe him.’

Sparhawk swore under his breath. ‘This might not be as easy as I thought,’ he said. ‘Let’s go on then and see what we can find out.’

The house to which Sephrenia had been directed sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, a short street that went nowhere.

‘That’s going to be difficult to watch without being obvious,’ Sparhawk said as they rode slowly past the mouth of the narrow street.

‘Not really,’ Sephrenia disagreed. She reined in her palfrey. ‘We need to talk with the shopkeeper there on the corner.’

‘Did you want to buy something?’

‘Not exactly buy, Sparhawk. Come along. You’ll see.’ She slid down out of her saddle and tied the reins of her delicate white horse to a post outside the shop she had indicated. She looked around briefly. ‘Will your great war horse discourage anyone who might want to steal my gentle little Ch’iel?’ she asked. She laid her hand affectionately on the white horse’s neck.

‘I’ll talk to him about it.’

‘Would you?’

‘Faran,’ Sparhawk said to the ugly roan, ‘stay here and protect Sephrenia’s mare.’

Faran nickered, his ears pricked eagerly forward.

‘You big old fool,’ Sparhawk laughed.

Faran snapped at him, his teeth clacking together at the empty air inches from Sparhawk’s ear.

‘Be nice,’ Sparhawk murmured.

Inside the shop, a room devoted to the display of cheap furniture, Sephrenia’s attitude became ingratiating, even oddly submissive. ‘Good master merchant,’ she said with an uncharacteristic tone in her voice, ‘we serve a great Pelosian noble who has come to Chyrellos to seek solace for his soul in the holy city.’

‘I don’t deal with Styrics,’ the merchant said rudely, glowering at Sephrenia. ‘There are too many of you filthy heathens in Chyrellos already.’ He assumed an expression of extreme distaste, all the while making what Sparhawk knew to be totally ineffective gestures to ward off magic.

‘Look, huckster,’ the big knight said, affecting an insulting Pelosian-accented manner, ‘do not rise above yourself. My master’s chatelaine and I will be treated with respect, regardless of your feeble-minded bigotry.’

The shopkeeper bristled at that. ‘Why –’ he began to bluster.

Sparhawk smashed the top of a cheap table into splinters with a single blow of his fist. Then he seized the shopman’s collar and pulled him forward so that they were eye to eye. ‘Do we understand each other?’ he said in a dreadful voice that hovered just this side of a whisper.

‘What we require, good master merchant,’ Sephrenia said smoothly, ‘is a goodly set of chambers facing the street. Our master has been ever fond of watching the ebb and flow of humanity.’ She lowered her eyelashes modestly. ‘Have you such a place abovestairs?’

The shopkeeper’s face was a study in conflicting emotions as he turned to mount the stairs towards the upper floor.

The chambers above were shabby – one might even go so far as to say ratty. They had at some time in the past been painted, but the pea-soup-green paint had peeled and now hung in long strips from the walls. Sparhawk and Sephrenia were not interested in paint, however. It was to the dirty window at the front of the main chamber that their eyes went.

‘There’s more, little lady,’ the shopkeeper said, more respectfully now.