Thieves World by Robert Asprin

Author:Robert Asprin [Asprin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy
Published: 1979-05-14T20:00:00+00:00

'Did what?' the startlingly good-looking woman said. 'Roaching? What's roaching mean?'

Her companion, who was only a little older than her seventeen or eighteen years, stiffened his neck to keep from looking anxiously around. 'Sh - not so loud. When do cockroaches come out?'

She blinked at the dark, so-intense young man. 'Why - at night.'

'So do thieves.'

'Oh!' She laughed, struck her hands together with a jangling of bangles - gold, definitely - and touched his arm. 'Oh, Hanse, I know so little! You know just about everything, don't you.' Her face changed. 'My, these hairs are soft.' And she left her hand on that arm with its dark, dark hairs.

'The streets are my home,' he told her. 'They birthed me and gave me suck. I know quite a bit, yes.'

He could hardly believe his luck, sitting here in a decent tavern out of the Maze with this genuinely beautiful Lirain who was ... by the Thousand Eyes and by Eshi, too, could it be? - one of the concubines the Prince-Governor had brought over from Ranke! And she's obviously fascinated with me, Hanse thought. He acted as if he sat here in the Golden Oasis every afternoon with such as she. What a coincidence, what great good fortune to have run into her in the bazaar that way! Run into her indeed! She had been hurrying and he'd been turning, glancing back at one of those child-affrighters of Jubal's, and they had slammed together and had to cling to each other to avoid falling. She had been so apologetic and in seeming need to make amends and - here they were, Hanse and a palace conky unguarded or watched, and a beauty at that - and wearing enough to support him for a year. He strove to be oh so cool,

'You certainly do like my gourds, don't you.'

'Wha-'

'Oh, don't dissemble. I'm not mad. Really, Hanse. If I didn't want 'em looked at I'd cover 'em in high-necked homespun.'

'Uh ... Lirain, I've seen one other pearl-sewn halter of silk in my life, and it didn't have those swirls of gold thread, or so many pearls. I wasn't this close, either.' Damn, he thought. Should have complimented her, not let her know my interest is greed for the container!

'Oh! Here I am, one of seven women for one man and bored, and I thought you were wanting to get into my bandeau, when what you really want is it. What's a poor girl to do, used to the flatteries of courtiers and servants, when she meets a real man who speaks his real thoughts?'

Hanse tried not to let his preening show. Nor did he know how to apologize, or to fancy-talk beyond the level of the Maze. Besides, he thought this pout-lipped beauty with her heart-shaped face and nice woman's belly was having some fun with him. She knew that pout was irresistible!

'Wear high-necked homespun,' he said, and while she laughed, 'and try not to look that way. This real man knows what

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.