‘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