Hearing was believing, and even more distressing than seeing for Aurich.  Though she spoke with the bite of a hound of war, it was hard enough for years of knightly - and merchantly - machismo to understand a young woman's voice behind the head of an axe.  But business, ah, that was all too familiar.<br/><br/>His lance head lowered, kissing the ground lightly but still pointed toward the mercenary captain.  He was only half certain it was the right direction to point, but banter was better than an exchange of arrows.  And unless the dancer had an amazing talent in hiding things without clothes, he had no arrows of his own to fire back with.  The Lady Cecilia was a good shot, but there was power behind the bows of these mercenaries that she couldn't compete with.<br/><br/>"Good business sense," he answered, cracking a cautious smile.  And as the wyvern rider from before and an even newer face placed themselves between him and the mercenaries, he lowered his lance's guard completely while holding his cape open to both draw any fire toward him and not the dancer and show he had no will to fight a meaningless battle like the soldier now walking toward Cecilia in surrender.  "Maybe we can discuss business as gentleme..n," he added, still catching himself on his words as he spoke to the girl, "... there's been enough fighting for one day, correct?"