came
on noiseless feet and poured wine.

"If you have no blood-feud with my family, will you drink with me?"

"I will," I said, relaxing. Even if he had associated the trader with
the scarred Earthman of the spaceport, he seemed to have decided to drop
the matter. He seemed startled, but he waited until I had lifted the
glass and taken a sip. Then, with a movement like lightning, he leaped
from the dais and struck the glass from my lips.

I staggered back, wiping my cut mouth, in a split-second juggling
possibilities. The insult was terrible and deadly. I could do nothing
now but fight. Men had been murdered in Shainsa for far less. I had come
to settle one feud, not involve myself in another, but even while these
lightning thoughts flickered in my mind, I had whipped out my skean and
I was surprised at the shrillness of my own voice.

"You contrive offense beneath your own roof--"

"Spy and renegade!" Kyral thundered. He did not touch his skean. From
the table he caught a long four-thonged whip, making it whistle through
the air. The long-legged child scuttled backward. I stepped back one
pace, trying to conceal my desperate puzzlement. I could not guess what
had prompted Kyral's attack, but whatever it was, I must have made some
bad mistake and could count myself lucky to get out of there alive.

Kyral's voice perceptibly trembled with rage. "You dare to come into my
own home after I have tracked you to the Kharsa and back, blind fool
that I was! But now you shall pay."

The whip sang through the air, hissing past my shoulders. I dodged to
one side, retreating step by step as Kyral swung the powerful thongs. It
cracked again, and a pain like the burning of red-hot irons seared my
upper arm. My skean rattled down from numb fingers.

The whip whacked the floor.

"Pick up your skean," said Kyral. "Pick it up if you dare." He poised
the lash again.

The fat woman screamed.

I stood rigid, gauging my chances of disarming him with a sudden leap.
Suddenly the girl Dallisa leaped from her seat with a harsh musical
chiming of chains.

"Kyral, no! No, Kyral!"

He moved slightly, but did not take his eyes from me. "Get back,
Dallisa."

"No! Wait!" She ran to him and caught his whip-arm, dragging it down,
and spoke to him hurriedly and urgently. Kyral's face changed as she
spoke; he drew a long breath and threw the whip down beside my skean on
the floor.

"Answer straight, on your life. What are you doing in