Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

While Fulcris was still blinking at that strange utterance, their attention was drawn to the door. It had opened to admit a good-sized fellow in a light tan tunic whose skin- and sleeve-hems were decorated with maroon bands, and with a maroon bar running over each shoulder and down his torse. His high buskins were dark red. He bore a sword and long dagger in maroon sheaths, and he looked competent. Just inside, he swept the common room with a bleak gaze. It lingered for a moment on Strick and Fulcris before passing on. He backed a pace, nodded to someone outside, and stepped in to stand to the door’s left. Rather stiffly, in the manner of a sentry.

Through the doorway, all bright and summery in white and yellow, bustled a beaming Shafralaina Esaria. Smiling and dimpled, she came straight to the two men. Strick continued looking past her long enough to note the other man outside, also in her family’s livery.

“Strick! Fulcris! Well met!”

“What a coincidence,” Strick said drily, as both men rose.

“Don’t be silly! I came here to see you! I’d have been here earlier, but first I had to convince father that I needed to shop, and then I had to wait while he gave detailed instructions to no less than two ‘escorts’ to accompany me. What’s in those cups?”

She had a breathless, girlish way of talking that Strick could not despise. The tallish, lean girl with the pale hair was too fresh, too charming. Soon she was seated with them, also with a cup of water-weakened wine. Well met indeed,

Strick soon learned, when he mentioned that he wanted information as to where he might “open a place of business.” Flashing those bemazing dimples, Esaria was delightedly able to help. A cousin of her father’s, it seemed, was a civil servant whose customs job had remained secure through the various administrations. That was partially because of his sideline: he remembered everything and conducted scrupulously private investigations.