Wednesday September 19, in The Year 725 After the Founding

Genie's eyelids snapped open. It was still dark inside the room, but when she looked out the window and across the roof of the inn, she could see the first, faint signs of dawn. She yawned, stretched, then rolled over and poked Mario in the ribs.

"Up and at 'em sleepyhead. If we make decent time the next two days, we'll get to Metz early and we'll have a full day to sightsee. I want to see the Basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains. It's the oldest church in France! Oh, and I want to see how the construction is going on the Cathedral of Saint Stephen. Even though it's not nearly complete, I heard from that monk in Epinal that's it's already awesome."

"Ye Gods woman. You know I was up late with that tinker from Zurich. He knew a lot more about what was going on in Austria than he realized, and I wanted to get everything I could out of him before he passed out."

"Exactly. That's why I woke you up. We need to pass your information on to the twins before they have to leave for school. So, give me your hand. You know that it gives us all a nasty headache if I'm not touching you when I call them."

She sighed, her frustration evident. "I wish we'd known about that when we were first testing things out, but how could we? We were only about nine kilometers apart then, and now it's nearly 400."

Mario did her one better. He slid closer and plastered the length of his body against hers. Seeing her surprise, he murmured, "If holding my hand helps, then this ought to be even better, right?"

He always enjoyed seeing her blush. It made her even that much more cute. For a moment she pretended to struggle, and acted like she wanted to push him away, but the mounting intensity of her purr made her true feelings apparent.

Not for the first time he felt a tingle of surprise. He'd heard other men complaining about how hard it was sometimes to tell if a woman was willing to be held or not. It made no sense. If you paid attention to whether or not they were purring, and how strongly, it didn't take a genius to figure it out.

Suddenly a thought struck him. Could it be that only some women purred when they were excited or aroused? He'd not thought of that before. He knew that Hibiki did. He'd heard her that night in the alley when he and Genie had been saying "goodbye," but he'd heard nothing from Yoko. He'd also heard Sara purring a time or two when she was nuzzling Paolo in the hall when they thought they were alone in the house.

Unfortunately there was no way to satisfy his curiosity. He'd never be able to bring himself to ask anyone, especially not Genie. Regardless of the answer, she'd tease him about asking for years.

As he was thinking about that conundrum, he was murmuring the information he needed to pass along into Genie's ear. After being on the road for over three months, they'd perfected the process. He's tell Genie one thing, then she'd repeat it to the twins, who would alternate so they could record what she said more quickly. Once one of them told her that she'd finished writing down one item, Genie would nod and Mario would continue. Sometime, as today, it would take almost an hour, though it usually took only about 10 minutes.

By the time they were finished, both of them were frustrated. Because of the length of the report, there wasn't any time to do anything other than get dressed, eat breakfast, and get on the road. The twins had told Genie that there would be a cache of books about three hours outside of Metz. There would be almost 200 this time instead of the usual dozen or so. The twins hadn't explained fully, though there'd apparently be a detailed explanation in one of the packages. As a precaution, it was written in Japanese. If someone else chanced to find the cache, it wouldn't do for them to start asking questions about the intended recipients.

---------------

They got an early start the following day as they'd spent the night in a smallish village that was unsuitable for a bookstore and also had no other travelers whom they could pump for gossip.

It happened at about 9 a.m. The horses noticed it first. They began to act restive and required a bit of prodding to continue down the road. No words were necessary. Three of the humans pulled out their swords. The fourth, a woman who was one of the finest shots with a bow that Genie had ever seen, quickly strung her composite bow and loosely nocked an arrow.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

They were heading slightly downhill, and there was a bit of a bend in the road about 100 meters ahead. It was a good place for an ambush. As they rode closer, they smelled blood. A lot of blood. Finally they had to dismount and lead the animals.

Rounding the bend, they saw a fist-sized rock in the middle of the road, with a sheet of paper under it. While the others continued to scan the surrounding trees for enemies, Genie cautiously approached, sword in hand. While keeping watch to both sides, she moved the rock with her toe then picked up the note.

The two closest to her heard her sigh. They all heard the "all clear" whistle that followed it and moved closer so they could hear what she had to say. However, they still kept their backs to her and their eyes on the forest.

"It seems that a certain someone was watching the cache to make sure that nobody stole anything. Unfortunately, at least for them, a group of bandits decided to camp less than 50 meters away last night. She says that there's a spring and a flat area just to the north. She also says that there was no way that they'd miss seeing the cache this morning as it was only hidden so as to not be seen from the road. It was clearly visible from behind.

"She also says that, since there were 11 bandits, and because she feared that even we might have trouble with that many, AND as 'they', whoever 'they' are, were getting rusty from lack of practice, 'they' decided to remove the bandits from the picture so as not to 'trouble' us with having to do so 'which might have delayed you for some 30 minutes'."

Genie gave an exasperated sigh, then laughed. "Then it says that once they realized that it would only take a few minutes to dispatch the bandits, they waited until they heard all their names. After that they sent a certain pair of twins to Metz to check on bounties. This morning they 'removed the miscreants', packed up their camp, fed and watered the horses, and tied the bodies on them.

Genie turned to a second page. "There's a list of names here with the bounties for each. Apparently this was a rather notorious bunch."

She lifted her head and laughed wryly. "She also says that once word gets around that we took out this particular group, 'even those not in their right minds' are likely to not even think about bothering us in the future."

Turning to a third page she scanned it, then dropped to her knees, and laughed till she cried. Twice she tried to speak, but was unable to stop the laughter from returning and waved her arm around in a "wait a minute" gesture.

Once she finally had herself under control, though she still had tears on her cheeks, she managed to speak, "This third page is a list of everything of value they had on them. It also includes the names of the shops in Metz that will give us the best prices when we're ready to sell."

There was a final page, and Genie's expression sobered as she read it. "There's a separate package of things whose proper owners could be determined. Them or their heirs."

As there was nothing else meaningful to be said, they gathered everything and set out for Metz.

When they arrived, the gate guards, after watching them approach with wary astonishment, directed them to the local guard headquarters. They were met with suspicion, though that disappeared once the sergeant on duty identified several of the deceased. Thereafter they were treated as minor celebrities. The Guard had long experience with this particular group, and some had kinfolk who had been killed by them.

The Guard Commander himself escorted them to the local branch of The Bank of the Griffon once Mario made it clear that they were in no way considering keeping the bounty payments on their persons. After Mario introduced himself at the bank, the manager, who was also one of the partners, was summoned and bustled out to meet with them herself, which surprised the Commander no end.

However, once the manager explained that Mario was a personal representative of the senior partner at the home office of the bank, the Commander relaxed and prepared to excuse himself. He hurriedly reviewed his interactions with the group. He decided that nothing he'd said could be construed in any way as an insult. In addition to being formidable, these people were also of some importance. Although it was new, this branch of The Bank of The Griffon was already patronized by many of the nobility and the upper classes. One such as he, with aspirations to higher office, vigorously avoided offending those who might someday assist, or at least not oppose, his advancement.

Lastly he decided that he'd best cover all possibilities, just in case, "If you don't mind, could you tell me where in town you'll be staying?"

As Mario opened his mouth to answer, the bank manager interjected, "A rather, um...determined young lady left word yesterday that you'd be arriving today and that you planned on staying at the Balancing Peddlar."

Genie grinned. "Was her name perchance Mimi?"

The manager glanced upward, toward the ceiling, while thinking. "Now that you mention it, yes, that's what she said."

Genie turned to the Guard Commander. "The Balancing Peddlar it is."

The Commander bowed slightly and took his leave. Mario finished his self-introduction and went with the manager to her office to begin briefing her on the new bank policies and procedures. As they headed to the back of the building, Genie smiled, shook her head, and saw about taking care of their deposit. That and gently fishing for any local gossip of interest that the clerk handling the transaction might have to offer.