Blood ties-- Thieves World 09 (36 page)

"Let the breath out," he was told. "Drink, and try to do it in such a way that it all goes down at a gulp."

When Gonfred took the goblet, gasping, Strick put his hands on the seated man's shoulders. "Your hiccups are going, Gonfred..." Hurriedly Gonfred knocked back the contents of the goblet. He gasped some more, watching the other man return to his chair behind the cloth-draped desk.

"Your hiccups are gone, Gonfred my friend. There is always a trade, a Price beyond this silver, over which I have no control. If it is unbearable, return." Gonfred sat staring. His hiccoughs were gone. "Thank you, Spellmasier!" He was at the door when he turned, paced back to the desk, and retrieved both silver coins. In their place he laid down a plain, drilled disk of pure gold. Then he departed.

He entered carrying a sack. His name was Jakob and he was called Blind Jakob. Strick's face was sad as he watched Wints guide the fruit pedlar to the chair. Jakob's hand found the desk and he set the sack upon it.

"I am Strick, Jakob, and I have fear that I cannot help you."

"It-it is-you think it is permanent, sir?" The blind man looked stricken. "Ah gods. But it is so troublesome-so embarrassing."

Strick blinked. "Embarrassing?"

"The roiling inside is bad enough, but when I break wind in public, particularly when a woman is examining my fruits..."

Strick clamped both hands over his mouth to hold back all sound of laughter. The poor fellow was accustomed to his true affliction. But gas disturbed him; it was socially embarrassing! Strick rose and moved around the desk.

"I am coming to put my hands on you, Jakob. Give me something of value." The blind man leaned a little forward to touch the sack. "Three people have insisted on buying those in the past hour, sir. They are the most valuable I have had in a long while."

Strick's hands were on him, now. He was relieved to feel no death here, and he knew at once that the offering was of value to this man. Then he felt the tension, and was sure that Jakob's gas was not dietary. He must be careful. This man did not live or work in a truly dangerous area. Yet relieve him of all tension and he might be left so complacent that he really would be in the danger that now he mostly imagined. Strick did what he could, to the extent he dared.

"Your gas is gone, Jakob my friend, save when you overindulge in food or drink. Radishes and cucumbers are your enemies, Jakob. Mind now, there is always a trade, a Price beyond this sack, and over that I have no control. If it is unbearable, return."

Jakob arose, made his request and heard it granted, and traced out the lines of the other man's face with his fingers. He departed with his sack, now empty. The two muskmelons were superb, indeed things of value.

"Bad breath, yes. Would you open your mouth and let me see the source, please?" Bent close to look, Strick was half overcome by the foul odor that was his client's complaint. He turned his head aside, took a deep breath, and looked closely into that mouth. He straightened. Shaking his head, he went to give Wints quiet instructions. Strick returned to stand over this friend of Shafralain, looked sternly down at him.

"Noble Volmas, you must have more love for both gods and self. The gods gave you those teeth. You have not cleaned them for years. Do so, man! In the meanwhile ah, thank you, Wintsenay. In the meanwhile. Noble, take this cup. Note the five seeds in its bottom. The cup also contains salt water. Aye, make a face-and drink! See that you swallow the seed. The Seeds of Malasaconooga are the source of my abilities."

Strick remained standing, sternly watching, while the poor fellow drank off the salt water. Finished, he made choking noises and a dreadful face. A stem Strick held out his hand for the cup. He peered within. A seed remained. He heaved a mighty sigh, sent it back to be filled with water, and gave the finely dressed man with the great belly even sterner instructions. The noble drank. The fifth seed went down.

"Now. That foul breath that has cost you friends and alienated your wife is not gone, but will go, steadily. I am only a maker of small white spells. Noble, and sometimes I must have help. Keep that cup. Use it. Clean your teeth twice daily, after you eat. Get in there with cloth and soap. Yes, it will taste terrible; you've been told there is a Price here, beyond those ten silver coins you claim to find dear. After you have cleaned, add a goodly measure of salt to that cup, fill with water-not-wine, and rinse. You heed not drink. Swirl it about in your mouth and spit, until all is gone. Remember all this! It is important. If in two weeks your breath is not improved fivehold, return to me." After Volmas had left, Strick stood shaking his head. Charlatan, he told himself. Yet he had done good for everyone who had to come in contact with that stupid swine, to whom ten pieces of silver were as naught. That cup was one he had never liked, and he had known he'd find a use for some of the seeds from blind Jakob's melons!

"My dear, you are under a spell. I cannot see whose, and I am sorry. You need the aid of powers beyond mine. Go to Enas Yorl. Here now, take back your gold. I have not earned it. If he does not or will not help, return and we will try." Smoke of the Flame, he thought in anger and true pain, watching her unhappy departure. Abhorrent black magic again. After two weeks here I have done so little for these poor pitiful people with their misery and their wicked sorcerers!

* * *

The lady of wealth was forty-eight and showing about one gray hair for every six black. The dyes she had tried made an ugly mess, deadening her hair. He considered her, her vanity, and her offer of three golden disks bearing a likeness of the new Emperor.

"It is a natural process. Lady Amaya. The problem is that presently it's streaky. If it grayed faster, or went white, you would be both beautiful and striking."

"Oh-oh my."

She went away and he waited an hour before sending her golden coins to her. She returned next day. "Show me silver," she said, setting a largeish dinky bag of purple cloth on his desk, and he showed her. He also "cheated." She did look magnificent with silver hair, and he added a small spell so that she and her vanity agreed with the fact.

"Oh! Oh my!" she said, staring at the mirror, turning her head this way and that. "Oh, Spellweaver! You are a genius! My husband will love it and all the girls will-oh my. What shall I tell them?"

"That you have been dyeing it for two years or so, and are so happy to be over your vanity!"

Amaya laughed in delight. "A genius! They will be filled with both shame and envy!"

Within the next two weeks he had five requests for silver hair, although none of these others, of varying stations in life, gave him fifty pieces of silver. Not to mention the chain of gold Amaya's husband sent as "token of his pleasure."

"So. It's been a month, and you are staying busy. Tell me about your day," Esaria said, looking so bright and sunny across the little table from him. They were taking dinner in the Golden 0, while her guard and Frax sat across the room, visiting. He wore his odd blue "uniform," including the plain gold disk on a gold chain about his neck.

He spoke to the pepper pot with which he toyed. "I was asked for a love potion. She said she just knew he was fond of her but when he's up close he loses ardor, unto aloofness. I gave her what she needed. A vial of colored wotter with a bit of wine and camomile for aroma, and soap made green by simple herbal coloring. I bade her bathe daily and well, putting a bit of each into the bath wotter and drying thoroughly."

Esaria looked very skeptical indeed. "That's a love potion?!"

"It is what she needs. She stinks. If he doesn't respond to her better aroma, someone will; she's attractive. For that I earned two coppers. Stop laughing, brat. My business is help for the people. I had to turn away a clubfoot. I can do nothing about that-by the Flame, how I wish I could! A former client returned. Looked good: I had indeed removed his acne, but his Price took the form of diarrhea he could not bear. I removed the spell and returned his two coppers. So-he has acne and a settled stomach." Strick shrugged. "He's seventeen. The acne will go. Mine did."

"So has most of mine," she said. "But at this rate you could starve!"

He shook his head. "Hardly. A certain friend of your mother's is very sensitive about her scraggly hair. I put a little spell on it and made her promise to wash it at least every other day. For that, she left fourteen silver Imperials-old Imperials. Said it is her magic number."

"Is it?"

He smiled. "No. Must be mine, though," and they chuckled together. "Too, a messenger arrived from Volmas. His message was a nice fat gold piece."

"Is that what happened to his foul breath! Ah, my hero!" Clasping her hands under her chin, she gazed at him. "What else. Hero of the People?"

"I spelled a wart off a finger. Ten coppers! Accepted a sack of decent wine for still another head of silver hair. I think it was more than she could afford, at age thirty. A woman asked me to cast a spell on her neighbor, who is after her husband. Third request for punitive spells this week. I refuse them all. The very next client asked me to make her more attractive to her husband. See the difference in the minds of the two individuals? I told her she would be, as soon as she gets him to come to me. The spell, you see, needs to be on him, so that he perceives her as more attractive!"

"How lovely! You might put one on a certain man for me," she said, tracing a finger idly along his forearm.

"If you were more attractive no one in Sanctuary could stand it," he said, and rushed on before she could say what he did not want to hear. "This is interesting. The man and the woman came together. Their neighbor's dog barks every night and disturbs their sleep and that of their infant. He said he wanted the dog dead and I told him no. He came back with almost a command: 'At least punish my neighbor! The swine sleeps right through that beast's noise!'" Strick sighed. "That was tempting!"

"I should think so! Sounds like justice to me," Esaria said.

"True. But it's beyond what I will do. When he settled down and she begged for any sort of relief, I promised that the dog would not bother their sleep again."

"Oh how wonderful, Strick!" She squeezed his arm. "You put a sleeping spell on them?-or one on their ears?"

"No! Never that; I couldn't make such a spell selective. They could perish in their sleep because they heard nothing. No, but if you'd like to take a little ride with me 'morrow afternoon, we will visit their neighbor's dog. Simple: I merely see to it that he makes no sound between late twilight and dawn."

She laughed aloud. "How marvelous! And yes, I'd love to go!" She squeezed his arm at the elbow. After a few moments she sobered: "Oh. But suppose someone tried to break in at the home of the dog's owner? Won't you have done bad along with the good?" Now her leg had found his, under the table.

"A dog that barks at night without real cause is of no value, and better off on a farm someplace. Besides, its owner sleeps right on, remember? Else he'd have got rid of the dog long ago. Or become its master as well as merely owner."

"Ah. I should have known better than to question you. Oh Strick you're so wise and so sensitive! You care so, about

people!"

Strick responded to compliments no better than most, and chose not to respond to that. "Do you know someone called

Chenaya?"

"Yes. Uh-not well. I am not interested in knowing her well."

"Um. Neither is much of anyone else, apparently. Came in yesterday. First she challenged Frax and sneered at him, then made a sexual suggestion to Wints and then a nasty remark, said another nasty to Avneh and came swaggering in. Reminds me of an adolescent boy with a lot to prove. Challenged me -not to a passage at arms, I mean, just by remarks and attitude. A thoroughly poison personality. She had persuaded herself to come, but had trouble stating her problem. A very, very defensive... person. Demanded to know the source of my ability. I told her the emerald Eye of Agromoto and-"

"That's not what you told me!"

"No, but it's what I thought of yesterday; today I told a fellow it came from the Hoary Head of the Hawk of Horus. I asked this Chenaya for something of value and she slapped down a dagger. Nice sticker, with a jewel or two. She wondered aloud what's under my cap and I only stared, waiting. She kept hedging and meandering verbally. I made the signal for Wints to interrupt and tell me someone was waiting. 'Get out of here, lackey!' she snapped at him, and I quietly told her that I would give orders to my people, thanks, and never to hers. She glowered for a while, then looked away, mentioned needing privacy, and told me what she perceives as her problem."

Strick paused to shake his head. '"I'd like to-to do better with people,' she said. 'No one-I mean, some people don't uh er seem to uh like me.'" Esaria made a nasty noise.

He went on: "At last she'd got it out, but she continued looking at the wall. Embarrassed and defensive. Ready to challenge, snap back, fight, argue. What a rotten job her parents did with her; how defensive and unhappy she is! I told her that I could help her, but that she would not like the solution -and only her gods could know what the Price might be! She looked at me, then, and I thought how sad it is that she has such genuinely pretty eyes." He shook his head. " 'What would you do that would be so terrible?' she wanted to know, and I told her: Lock your tongue. Render you unable to speak. That and some real counseling."

Esaria giggled.

"Her glare got worse," he said, ignoring her. "She called me charlatan, snatched up the dagger, and stalked to the door. That didn't surprise me; it just saddened me. Then she surprised me: she turned back and made a sexual suggestion. I said no. Unfortunately she demanded a reason. I told her I did not find her sexually attractive. I don't, and stop looking that way. She seems bent on couching every male in the city-as if, Wints says, her creator mandated it. Not this one. I am more than disinterested: The idea is abhorrent."