Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

The lady of wealth was forty-eight and showing about one gray hair for every six black. The dyes she had tried made an ugly mess, deadening her hair. He considered her, her vanity, and her offer of three golden disks bearing a likeness of the new Emperor.

“It is a natural process. Lady Amaya. The problem is that presently it’s streaky. If it grayed faster, or went white, you would be both beautiful and striking.”

“Oh-oh my.”

She went away and he waited an hour before sending her golden coins to her.

She returned next day. “Show me silver,” she said, setting a largeish dinky bag of purple cloth on his desk, and he showed her. He also “cheated.” She did look magnificent with silver hair, and he added a small spell so that she and her vanity agreed with the fact.

“Oh! Oh my!” she said, staring at the mirror, turning her head this way and that. “Oh, Spellweaver! You are a genius! My husband will love it and all the girls will-oh my. What shall I tell them?”

“That you have been dyeing it for two years or so, and are so happy to be over your vanity!”

Amaya laughed in delight. “A genius! They will be filled with both shame and envy!”

Within the next two weeks he had five requests for silver hair, although none of these others, of varying stations in life, gave him fifty pieces of silver. Not to mention the chain of gold Amaya’s husband sent as “token of his pleasure.”

“So. It’s been a month, and you are staying busy. Tell me about your day,”

Esaria said, looking so bright and sunny across the little table from him. They were taking dinner in the Golden 0, while her guard and Frax sat across the room, visiting. He wore his odd blue “uniform,” including the plain gold disk on a gold chain about his neck.