I wouldn’t, thought Smith, and exited quietly.
He heard the bell in the lobby summoning him. Someone was hammering away at it imperiously. He swore under his breath, wondering what else could go wrong with his day, or his week, or his life…
“Here he is! Oh, dear, doesn’t he look cross?” said Lord Ermenwyr brightly. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Because you’re an unsympathetic little beast, Master,” Balnshik told him, and held out her hand. “Smith, darling! How have you been these last few months?”
Smith gulped. His brain ground to a halt, his senses shifted gears.
He knew she was an ageless, deathless, deadly thing; but there she stood in a white beaded gown that glittered like frost, with a stole of white fox furs, and she was elegant and desirable beyond reason.
Beside her stood Lord Ermenwyr, looking sleek and healthy for a change, loudly dressed in the latest fashion. How anyone could wear black and still be loudly dressed was a mystery to Smith. The lordling’s hat bore some of the responsibility: it was a high sugar-loaf copatain, cockaded with a plume that swept the lobby’s chandelier. Beyond him were Cutt, Crish, Stabb, and Strangel, heavily laden with luggage.
“Uh—I’ve been fine,” Smith replied.
“Well, you look like you’ve been through a wringer,” Lord Ermenwyr said. “Never mind! Now I’m here, all will be joy and merriment. Boys, take the trunks up to my customary suite and unpack.”
They instantly obeyed, shuffling up the stairs like a city block on the move. Lord Ermenwyr looked Smith up and down.
“Business has been off a bit, has it? I shouldn’t be at all surprised. But you needn’t worry about me, at least! I’m simply here to relax and have a lovely time in dear old Salesh-by-the-Sea. Go to the theaters with Nursie dearest, visit the baths, sample the latest prostitutes—”
There was a rending crash from somewhere upstairs.
“Oh, bugger,” said Lord Ermenwyr, glancing upward. “We forgot to give them a room key, didn’t we?”
“I think poor Smith needs a cool drink on the terrace,” said Balnshik, running one hand through his hair. “Let’s all go. Fetch a bottle from the bar, Master.”
He had to admit he felt better, sitting out at one of the tables while Balnshik poured the wine. All his other problems shrank in comparison to the prospect of a few weeks’ visit by demons, even if they were pleasantly civilized ones. And Balnshik’s physical attentions were pleasant indeed, though they stopped abruptly when Burnbright and Mrs. Smith joined them on the terrace. Instantly, the ladies formed a tight huddle and locked into a private conversation whose subject was exclusively pregnancy.
Lord Ermenwyr regarded them narrowly, shrugged, and lit his smoking tube with a fireball.
“Tsk; they won’t even notice us for the next three hours, now, Smith. I suppose we’ll have to sit here and find manly things to talk about. I detest sports of any kind, and your politics don’t even remotely interest me, and the weather isn’t really a gender-specific topic, is it? How about business? Yes, do tell me how your business is going.”
Smith told him. He listened thoughtfully, exhaling smoke from time to time.
“…And then there’s the trouble in, in the quarter where the Yendri businesses are,” Smith continued. “I can’t understand it; everyone’s always gotten along here, but now… they’re all resentful and we’re all on edge. The bathhouse keepers are up in arms, by all the gods! Rioting herbalists! I don’t know where it will end, but it certainly isn’t good for keeping hotel rooms occupied.”
“Oh, I’ll book the whole damn place for the summer, if that’ll help,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “That’s the least of your worries. You know what’s behind all this, of course.”
“No,” said Smith, with a familiar sense of impending doom. “What’s behind it?”
“This stupid man Smallbrass and his Planned Community, naturally,” Lord Ermenwyr replied. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the signs! Or perhaps you haven’t. They’re being defaced as soon as they go up.”
“Oh. That place being built down the coast?” Smith blinked. “What about it? The Yendri always complain when we build another city, but it’s not as though we were hurting anybody. We’ve got to have someplace to live, haven’t we?”
“I don’t know that the other races sharing the world with you would necessarily agree,” said Lord Ermenwyr delicately.
“Well, all right. But why should they be so especially bothered now?”
Lord Ermenwyr looked at Smith from a certain distance, all the clever nastiness gone from his face. It was far more disconcerting than his usual repertory of unpleasant expressions.
“Perhaps I ought to explain something—” he began, and then both he and Smith were on their feet and staring across the garden at the hotel. There was shouting coming from the lobby, followed by the shatter of glass. Burnbright gave a little shriek that dopplered away from them as they ran, along with Mrs. Smith’s cry of, “Stay here and keep down, for gods’ sake!”
Smith, though older and heavier, got there first, for halfway through the garden Balnshik materialized in front of Lord Ermenwyr and arrested his progress with her formidable bosom. He hit it and bounced back, slightly stunned, and so Smith was the one to catch Willowspear as he staggered out into the garden. The Yendri was bleeding from a cut above one eye.
“It’s all right,” he gasped. “They ran away. But the front window is smashed—”
They haven’t been here two hours, and I’m already down a door and a window, said an exasperated little voice in the back of Smith’s head. Out loud he said, “Damn ’em anyway. Look, I’m sorry—”
“Oh, they weren’t your people,” Willowspear told him, pressing his palm to the cut to stop the bleeding. “They were Yendri, I’m afraid.”
“What in the Nine Hells did you do that for?” Lord Ermenwyr demanded of Balnshik. “I think I’ve got a rhinestone in my eye!”
“I’m under geas to protect you, Master,” she reminded him.
“Well, I’m supposed to protect anyone ever sworn to my service, and an oath is just as good as a geas any day—”
“Bloody greenies!” snarled Crucible, emerging from the lobby. “Are you all right, son?”
“Don’t call him a greenie!” cried Burnbright, who had finally struggled across the yard. “Oh, oh, he’s hurt!”
“Well, but he’s our greenie, and anyway it was the other damn greenies—”
“I’m fine,” Willowspear assured her, attempting to bow to Lord Ermenwyr. “It’s a scratch. My gracious lord, I trust you’re well? We were coming back up Front Street and we were accosted by three, er—”
“Members of the Yendri race,” supplied Smith helpfully.
“—who demanded to know what I was doing in the company of two, er—Children of the Sun, and wanted me to go with them to—I think it was to attend a protest meeting or something, and when I tried to explain—”
“They started chucking rocks at our heads,” said Pinion, dusting his hands as he stepped out to join them. “But halfway down the block the City Wardens caught sight of them and they took off, and the Wardens went after ’em like a gree—like something really fast. You want us to board up the window, boss?”
Fifteen minutes later they were back at their places on the terrace, somewhat shaken but not much the worse for wear. Balnshik had deftly salved and bandaged Willowspear’s cut, and he sat with a drink in one hand. Burnbright perched in his lap, clinging to him. Mrs. Smith had been puffing so furiously on her jade tube that she was veiled in smoke, like a mountain obscured by mist.