The Diamond Throne

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 someimportant 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