Robert Asprin - Thieves World

'This message is from a traitor at the imperial court! It instructs Nizharu to assign one of his guards to murder me as soon as he has found someone on whom the charge can be falsely pinned! And it says that the writer is enchanting the message to prevent the wrong person's reading it - but there's no difficulty in reading this! It's the court writing I was first taught as a child!'

'We - ah - arranged for the magic to be eliminated,' hinted Melilot. And added quickly, 'Your Highness!'

'How came you by it?'

'It was dropped by Nizharu when he inspected our guardhouse.' That was Aye Gophlan, marching smartly forward. 'Thinking it important, I consulted Master Melilot, whom I've long known to be loyal and discreet.'

'And as for me ...' Melilot gave a deprecating shrug. 'I have certain contacts, let us say. It put me to no trouble to counteract the spell.'

True, thought Jarveena, and marvelled at how cleverly he lied.

'You shall be well rewarded,' declared the prince. 'And, after due trial, so shall he be! Attempting the life of one of the imperial blood - why, it's as heinous a crime as anyone might name! It was a miracle that he let fall the scroll. Surely the gods are on my side!' Raising his voice again. 'Tonight let all make sacrifice and give thanks! Under divine protection I have survived a dastardly assassin!'

If all gods, Jarveena thought, are no better than Melilot, I'm content to be an unbeliever. But I do look forward to watching Nizharu fry.

6

'In view of how you must be feeling, Jarveena,' said a soft voice at her side, 'I compliment you on the way you are concealing your emotions.'

'It's not difficult,' she answered with bitterness. The crowd was dispersing around them, heading away from the execution block where, according to the strict form, traitor Nizharu had paid for his many crimes by beating, hanging, and lastly burning.

And then she started. The person who had addressed her was nobody she recognized: tall, stooped, elderly, with wisps of grey hair, carrying a market basket...

Where eyes should be, a glint of red.

'Enas Yorl?' she whispered.

'That same.' With a dry chuckle. 'Inasmuch as I can ever make the statement... Are you content?'

'I - I guess I'm not.' Jarveena turned away and began to follow the drift of the crowd. 'I ought to be! I begged the privilege of writing the authorization for his execution in my own hand, and I thought I might include mention of my parents, my friends, the villagers he slaughtered or enslaved, but my formal Rankene isn't good enough, so I had to make do copying a draft by Melilot!' She tossed her head. 'And I hoped to stand up in open court, swear to what he did, watch the faces of the people change as they realized what a filthy villain came hither disguised as an imperial officer ... They said there was no need for any other evidence after Aye-Gophlan's and Melilot's and the prince's.'

'To speak after princes is a dangerous habit,' opined the wizard. 'But at all events, it appears to have dawned on you that revenge is never what you hope for. Take my own case. He who did to me what you know of was so determined to wreak his vengeance that he created one spell more than he could handle. To each he was obliged to cede a certain portion of his will; for as I told you, spells have no aim or purpose of their own. He thereby deprived himself of ordinary sense, and to his death sat blubbering and moaning like an infant.'

'Why do you tell me this?' cried Jarveena. 'I want to make the most of my moment of satisfaction, even if it can't be as rich and memorable as I dreamed.'

'Because,' said the wizard, taking her arm by fingers whose touch evoked extraordinary thrills all over her, 'you paid a fair and honest price for the service I undertook. I shall not forget you. Scarred and branded you may be without; within you are beautiful.'

'Me?' said Jarveena with genuine astonishment. 'As well call a toad beautiful, or a mud wall!'

'As you like,' Enas Yorl answered with a shrug. The movement revealed that he was no longer quite what he had been earlier. 'At all events, there is a second reason.'

'What?'

'You read the writing on the scroll, and previously I had described it to you. Nonetheless you're acting as though you have forgotten something.'

For a brief moment she failed to take his point. Then her hand flew to her open mouth.

'Two deaths,' she whispered.

'Yes, indeed. And I scarcely need to tell you to whom a traitor in the imperial court would apply for a spell powerful enough to drag me into the matter willy nilly. I could make the paper legible. I could not evade the consequences of undoing a colleague's work.'

'Whose death? Mine?

'It would be politic to minimize the danger, as for instance by taking employment with a seafarer. Many merchant-captains would be glad of a skilful clerk, and after your apprenticeship with Melilot you're well equipped for such a post. Moreover, your present master is inclined to jealousy. You are half his age, yet already he regards you as a rival.'

'He dissembles well,' muttered Jarveena, 'but now and then he's acted in a fashion that makes me believe you.'

'He might regard you more kindly were you to become a sort of foreign agent for him. I'm sure you could contrive - for a reasonable .fee - to supply him with commercially valuable information. He would scarcely object to adding other strings to his bow: trading in spices, for instance.'

For a while Jarveena had seemed enlivened by his discourse. Now she fell back into gloom.

'Why should I want to make myself rich, let alone him? Ever since I can remember I've had a purpose in life. Ifs gone - carried to the sky with the stench of Nizharu!'

'It takes a very rich person to commission a spell.'

'What would I want with magic?' she said contemptuously.

A second later, and it was as though fire coursed all over her body, outlining every mark that defaced her, every whiplash, every burn, every cut and scratch. She had forgotten until now, but sometime during that extraordinary night when she had lain with him, he had taken the trouble to trace her whole violent life story from the map of her skin.

Now she also remembered thinking that it must be for some private magical reason. Could she have been wrong? Could it have been simpler than that - could it just have been that he sympathized with one whom life had scarred in another way?

'You might wish,' he was saying calmly, 'to cleanse your body of the past as I think you have now begun to cleanse your mind.'

'Even ...?' She could not complete the question save by raising her hand to the right side of her chest.

'In time. You are young. Nothing is impossible. But one thing is much too possible. We've spoken of it. Now, act!'

They were almost at the gate, and the crowd was pressing and' jostling; people were setting their hands to their money-belts and pouches, for these were prime conditions for theft.

'I take it you'd not have spoken up unless you had a new employer in mind for me?' Jarveena said at length.

'You're most perceptive.'

'And if there were not some long-term advantage in it for yourself?'

Enas Yorl sighed. 'There is a long-term purpose to everything. If there were not, spells would be impossible.'

'So there was a purpose behind Nizharu's dropping of the scroll?'

'Dropping ... ?'

'Oh! Why didn't I think of that?'

'In time, I'm sure you would have done. But you came to Sanctuary so recently, you could scarcely be expected to know that in his boyhood Aye-Gophlan was counted among the smartest dips and cutpurses in the city. How else do you think he managed to buy himself a commission in the guards? Does he talk as though he came from a wealthy background?'

They were at the gate, and being squeezed through. Clutching her writing-case tightly with one hand, keeping the other folded over the silver pin which fastened her cloak in a roll around her waist, Jarveena thought long and long.