She saw no sign of anything hidden in his tunic. And certainly their hostess had given her no sign that she had seen Faro taking and concealing anything. "You didn't-" she said, her eyes wide.
"I did," he grinned, and displayed the two red balls of cheese like a conjurer, making them appear and vanish again into the breast of his tunic. And once there, although she had seen them disappear, she could not see where he had hidden them.
She smothered a fit of giggles. Faro, a sneak-thief? Who would ever have believed it? "How did you do that? Where did you learn such a thing?" she demanded.
"From one of the boys at the scribe school, when I was about nine, and was still small," he replied, "I was hungry all the time, and the boy claimed my growling stomach kept him awake at night. They never gave us enough time to eat our fill, and they never let us carry food away from the table. One of the other boys was the son of an entertainer, a dancer and conjurer; he taught us all how to filch and conceal food, and what foods were best for the purpose." His tone was light, and she caught a real smile lurking around the corners of his eyes and mouth. He obviously found her surprise quite amusing.
"Is there anything you don't know?" she asked, wondering yet again at the twist of fate that had brought them together, and led her to keep him after she had won him. For all of the horrible things that had happened to her, this-not only the ownership, but the friendship-made up for them. Next to Marcus, he was possibly the most wonderful person she had ever known. She would die if she had to do without him, she thought, suddenly. Die-or if they were right, and she had a terrible enemy, she would be killed.
"There are many, many things I can't do. I can't cook," he pointed out wryly. "As you well know, given the number of meals I have near-ruined. I can't sew. I can't clean unless someone shows me what to do. I am not particularly good at supervising others, although I believe I could learn. And as you are well aware, I know very little about gardening other than that seedlings come from farms and that they must be tended- you have had to teach me all of that. When you come to own a horse, you will have to find someone else to buy to deal with it, for you have seen for yourself how horses hate me."
"Not all horses," she said, stifling another giggle, for he was referring to a most unfortunate encounter with the dun mare that pulled the vegetable cart that serviced their neighborhood. Faro and the mare had confronted one another one morning a few days ago. For no reason that Xylina could fathom, the mare had decided that Faro looked like an enemy. She had gone for him, and had tried to bite him every time she saw him. The first time she had attacked him, Faro had not been aware of how fast she could strike nor what her range was. She had connected with his right buttock. And a horse's teeth, as Xylina had learned after treating the wound, made very large and painful bruises. The worst part was that the same mare adored Xylina and would beg for caresses whenever Xylina walked by, turning in the next instant to attack Faro.
"The only horse I have ever seen hates me," he replied. "And she loves you. I can only conclude either that all horses hate me, or that she is a Mazonite to the core, and believes men should be beneath her hooves, making the pavement soft for her to walk upon."
Xylina could no longer contain her laughter. She stifled it behind her hand, as Faro grinned ruefully, and they turned the corner with her wiping tears out of her eyes.
It was at that moment that Faro grabbed her arm and flung her into the wall; she hit the surface with both hands, softening her impact.
As she landed, she caught sight of a large stone sailing through the air where her head had been. It was an attack; it could be nothing else.
She quickly turned, using the impact with the wall to give herself extra speed, and looked for the danger. The first thing she saw was Faro, standing between her and harm, his back toward her. He was already using his staff against a pack of men, fending them off, gradually driving them away from her and the wall until they all stood in the middle of the wide street. It looked for all the world like a mastiff being worried by a pack of terriers, for he stood a head higher than any of the others.
But terriers could be effective. One of them, a man with a raw, broken branch with bark still upon it for a cudgel, succeeded in getting past the staff to smash his club against the side of Faro's head. Xylina winced at the sickening crack , but was too busy calling up her power to do anything to fend the attack off.
The blow missed the temple, but the club laid open the scalp, and Faro staggered a little, stumbling forward two steps before regaining his balance.
There was no time to waste; she had to act quickly before they took advantage of Faro's injury. She did not exactly think; she assessed the situation and acted, exactly as she had in the arena.
The worst thing that could happen to these men would be that they should get into each other's way. That would mean that Faro could use his own blows effectively, and they would not be able to get at him.
Yet anything she conjured to hamper them might also hamper him: oil on the street, or a rain of slippery stones, or flinging things at their legs or heads.
If he only had a corner to stand in-
That thought was all that she needed. She conjured him one. Power surged through her like an upwelling spring, and it did not even manifest from her hands this time, nor create a ghost-object before the full conjuration appeared. Instead, it simply flashed instantly into what she desired, creating two slabs of stone behind him that met in a "V" at his back.
The immediate effect of the conjuration was to shove the men who had been standing there out of the way, as the stones sprang into being before their eyes and partially within the space they had occupied. Those men were knocked to the ground, taking them temporarily out of action. And now the rest of the ruffians could come at him only from the front.
That evened the odds considerably. Now she was free to deal with the men between her and that newly-conjured stone. With the stone standing high between herself and Faro, she need not worry about hurting him with what she did.
There were three of them, one kneeling, one still on his behind, and one staggering to his feet, all reacting to the sudden appearance of walls of stone in front of them. They stared at the stone, and not at her. That was a mistake. Before they could recover, she acted.
The easiest thing for her to conjure was fabric-so she conjured that, yards and yards of it, dropping it over them and muffling them in its hampering folds. It dropped down right out of the air above them, again without a mist-shape presaging the actual conjuration, and without the conjuration actually touching her hands. Cries of surprise and rage came from beneath the fabric, and the folds churned and bounced as they pushed at it. Then she conjured a torrent of water that fell out of the empty air, like a sudden downpour of rain, soaking the fabric and turning it heavy and clinging, handicapping them further. She had made certain that it was icy water too, not hot-shocking them with the cold and giving her a chance to conjure up her next weapon.
This was almost fun. While they floundered, she moved in. She felt no fear during the action, merely determination to get the job done.
She conjured herself a length of metal; it came to her hands, heavy and cold and smooth beneath her hands. And very satisfying. She made the few steps to the trapped men and clubbed every lump that moved under that fabric.
Crunches and cries of pain came from beneath the cloth. The dark fabric was stained darker in places, but she ignored all of it. Anger gave her strength, and outrage guided her aim; she clubbed the forms beneath the cloth until nothing moved.
By the time she was finished, so was Faro. She came around her conjured stone wall, club at the ready, just in time to see Faro drive his staff across the temple of the last man still facing him; it hit the man's head with a distinct and uncomfortably familiar wet crack , and she saw the bone cave in before he dropped to the ground. As she looked around for more ruffians, she saw that two more men had taken to their heels, and even as that final attacker fell, they were disappearing around a corner.