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combined noise of the guardsman clearing his throat and Crim's pointed sigh made her start and spin around—but not before Crim noted that she held twosmall leather bags of the sort used to store mined gems. Both were bulging.
    Liallyn followed Crim's stare. “Dirt,” she said flatly. “Not that you have any right to know, here in Argen's sovereignty.”
    “Dirt,” Crim echoed neutrally. “How interesting.”
    “I can show you, if you like,” Liallyn replied, thrusting one of the bags at the startled guard, while reaching for the ties on the other.
    Crim shook her head. “No need, though I suppose dirt is technically part of Stone—or Clay.”
    “Both of which are Smith's allies,” Liallyn replied. “Still, honesty being better than subterfuge, I'll go ahead and tell you that we're curious as to whether there's anything special about the matrix in that vein. There's no reason to hide that fact from you, given that it's ours, anyway.”
    “Actually,” Crim shot back, “I'm looking into that.”
    Liallyn's brows lifted in annoyed surprise before she could hide it. The guard's eyes darted back and forth between them as his hand found the hilt of his dagger.
    To Crim's chagrin, Liallyn took the initiative. “That old business about the original vein grants? Let me remind you that it was a Smith who first found this place and dug the initial tunnel.”
    “Looking for ores, not gems,” Crim countered, though she shouldn't have. It was an old, old argument, but one that wouldn't die. Priest and Lore had been assigned to work out a settlement two centuries back and still hadn't. In essence, the argument went, Smith had made the excavation—with Stone's help—and established a small hold here. But when nothing useful to Smith had been forthcoming, they'd ceded the hold to Stone, of which Gem had then been a sept. Gemstones had promptly been discovered, which had given their miners sufficient clout to form a clan and craft of their own, but only with Smith's support, which they'd granted on the condition they be ceded a vein of their own to mine in perpetuity. Gem had reluctantly agreed, but the ensuing furor had resulted in all theother clans likewise demanding private veins in exchange for supposedly equal considerations. The clincher had come when someone pointed out that, beautiful as they were, gems were essentially a luxury, the withholding of which troubled no one but their own.
    All of which took Crim half a breath to recall. Which was still long enough for Liallyn to ready another volly. “You can bring it up at Sundeath,” she said. “For now, this is Smith territory. There's one of me, and I'm probably your equal in a fight. I have a guard. You can leave, or he can escort you. I'm sorry to be rude, but present right and ancient precedent both support me. You can challenge, but until then, I still have to report whatever I find and tithe the same—to your Mine-Master. If you want to confront someone, let it be him, who let first Avall, then Strynn slip at least two of these gems you're so obsessed with past his nose.”
    “Rann also found some,” Crim snapped. “And he could only have come down here with Smith's grace.”
    “He didn't,” Liallyn replied coldly. “If you want to pursue that, I suggest you address your complaint to Lord Eemon. For myself, I need to clean up, then take this sample to our suite— where I doubt it will tell me any more than it would have told you.”
    And with that, she snatched the remaining bag from the guard and pushed past him, to stride back down the shaft, leaving Crim gaping in her wake.
    “Lady—” the guard ventured, when they had returned to the entrance chamber. “Hold-Warden. I have to remind you that, as my Chief says, you are on Argen's earth. It would indeed be wise if you … departed.”
    And somehow, without her being aware of it, he had set himself between her and the entrance to the vein, with his dagger now fisted ominously. Crim glared at