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."