Strick countered with the fact that another someone had broken into the palace, impossibly, and (impossibly) made off with the head snake-lady's wand or something, and she had done not a bloody thing about it. Incredible!
A nasty adolescent boy in a female body was going about in the garb of a Rankan arena-fighter, insulting and threatening everyone in sight, including the ones she whorishly lay with. Five well-trained soldier-bodyguards from Ranke were reduced to guarding cattle or goats or orchards, while a street tale-teller was in the palace, wearing silk robes. The Rankan highest priest was apparently giving more time to personal romance-despite his being married-than priesting.
And King Chaos waved his scepter over Sanctuary.
Street skirmishes erupted into street war. Blood flowed in the gutters and someone started a fire that burned a good bit of real estate-mostly the homes of the poor, of course. After that Sanctuary was assaulted by a few years' worth of rain, all in a few days. Every creek, river, and sewer decided to back up.
"Sorcery," Strick muttered. "Abhorrent black magic. Ashes and embers, what poor pitiful people in need of help!"
A burned town was washed off and hoisted off its foundations on swirling flood waters. Somewhere in there the high-civilization bisexual meres of Tempus had come back and barbarously massacred a band of men in "their" barracks. More innocents had of course perished in that private war. Meanwhile in Ranke someone did away with the emperor and the new one-up from field general, hurrah!-dropped over to Sanctuary to say hello. Apparently he did naught else.
Yet perhaps it was he who pushed it along: the war against the witches/vampires/Things had grown, and a whole fine estate-mansion had burned in a towering pillar of fire for days or maybe it was weeks. When the fire went out the place was still there but no one dared go near it.
"Still is," Fulcris said. "Furthermore, one of the witch-women-Things is still about, living peacefully just outside town, and none of these poor excuses for humanity is doing a bloody thing about it."
"Black magic," Strick muttered, staring into his cup. "All black magic, on and on. By the Flame, but these people need relief, help, an advocate! A little surcease from agony and blackness in their lives!"
While Fulcris was still blinking at that strange utterance, their attention was drawn to the door. It had opened to admit a good-sized fellow in a light tan tunic whose skin- and sleeve-hems were decorated with maroon bands, and with a maroon bar running over each shoulder and down his torse. His high buskins were dark red. He bore a sword and long dagger in maroon sheaths, and he looked competent. Just inside, he swept the common room with a bleak gaze. It lingered for a moment on Strick and Fulcris before passing on. He backed a pace, nodded to someone outside, and stepped in to stand to the door's left. Rather stiffly, in the manner of a sentry.
Through the doorway, all bright and summery in white and yellow, bustled a beaming Shafralaina Esaria. Smiling and dimpled, she came straight to the two men. Strick continued looking past her long enough to note the other man outside, also in her family's livery.
"Strick! Fulcris! Well met!"
"What a coincidence," Strick said drily, as both men rose.
"Don't be silly! I came here to see you! I'd have been here earlier, but first I had to convince father that I needed to shop, and then I had to wait while he gave detailed instructions to no less than two 'escorts' to accompany me. What's in those cups?"
She had a breathless, girlish way of talking that Strick could not despise. The tallish, lean girl with the pale hair was too fresh, too charming. Soon she was seated with them, also with a cup of water-weakened wine. Well met indeed, Strick soon learned, when he mentioned that he wanted information as to where he might "open a place of business." Flashing those bemazing dimples, Esaria was delightedly able to help. A cousin of her father's, it seemed, was a civil servant whose customs job had remained secure through the various administrations. That was partially because of his sideline: he remembered everything and conducted scrupulously private investigations.
An hour later Fulcris was on his way back to the remnant of the caravan and Esaria was introducing Strick to her second cousin. Then she took her leave to buy something or other to prove to her father that shopping had indeed been her goal.
"And what about the report those dangerous-looking bodyguards give him?" Strick asked, smiling a little.
"Oh, they tell him what I tell them to tell him. They do exactly as I tell them."
Strick thought this an opportune time to say, "I am not that sort of man, Esaria."
White teeth flashed and dimples sprang into bold evidence. "Can't I just see that, 0 Mysterious Foreigner!" And with a wave, she was gone.
Still smiling that close-mouthed smile of his, Strick turned to her Second Cousin Cusharlain.
"Second Cousin Esaria is ... taken with you, Strick."
"I know. That's why you just heard me warn her. I am being careful, Cusharlain, and not encouraging your noble and wealthy cousin's dotter, believe me. Now let me tell you a little about my plans, and the sort of information I need."
Confident that Cusharlain was working on his behalf, Strick wandered. Passing snatches of conversation informed a tourist who used his ears as well as his eyes.
Carrying a bag formed of a dirty sheet trailing dirty laundry, he studied the palace while Beysin guards studied him with little interest. He went on his way, and soon bought a third armband. When it would not fit around his upper arm, he was apologetic about returning it. The "protectors" chuckled after him as the foreigner, apparently chicken-hearted for all his size, went on his way. Having strolled to the very end of Governor's Walk, he had a look at Sanctuary's main temples. He noted destruction, and the busy work of reconstruction. No, he learned, there was no Temple of the Flame or any kind of fire in Sanctuary. About every other deity imaginable was represented here, though, including a little chapel to Theba.
The foreigner nodded. The death goddess was of no interest to Strick of Firaqa.
He took the Street of Goldsmiths down to the Path of Money, noting among the well-off citizenry more decollete dresses too busy below the waist. He found the moneyhandler Cusharlain had recommended.
They held a bit of converse, during which both men learned this and that of interest to each. Then, in private, Strick opened the dirty-sheet bag to reveal its other contents, carefully pressed together and snugly wrapped to prevent their clinking.
The banker was delighted to make the acquaintance of Torezalan Strick tiFiraqa and his foreign gold.
Strick left in possession of several documents and carrying the bag that now held only dirty laundry. Two doors down and across that showily clean street, he entered the establishment of the second moneyhandler Cusharlain had mentioned. While that individual might have been uninterested in a foreigner with so little taste as to carry his soiled clothing along the street called Money, he was experienced enough to know that eccentric people came to him with treasures in eccentric disguises. He acceded to a private interview and was rewarded.
From his underwear the foreigner in the strange skullcap took a small felt bag. It did not jingle, but it did contain two gleaming examples of the largesse of Firaqa's Pearl River. They were worth over twenty horses, or much gold.
Strick departed with several more documents, less weighty underclothing, and carrying the bag that now held only dirty laundry.