Robert Asprin – Thieves World 09 – Blood Ties

The sun was nearing its zenith when Chenaya called a halt to the workout. She sent Daphne, Leyn, and the others back to the manse, but called Dismas and

Gestus to her side. The two were a team, almost never apart. Lovers, they even resembled each other with their sandy hair, close-cropped beards, and exaggerated musculature.

“Interested in a little game, friends?”

The two looked at each other, then at her, and said nothing. They had a good idea what she meant. They’d helped her with other little games before.

“Nobody can sneak around like you two,” she continued. In fact, they’d been the shiftiest pair of thieves and burglars in Ranke before they were finally caught and sentenced to Lowan’s school for arena training. “And very few are faster on their feet.”

Dismas folded his arms, repressing a grin. “Save the grease, mistress,” he said in clipped Rankene. “It’s too hot to stand here and exchange flatteries, even true ones.”

Chenaya sidled up to Dismas and rubbed her body against his. “Aren’t you taking good care of him these days?” she said teasingly to Gestus. With a knuckle she tapped the leather groin guard under Dismas’s kilt. “He’s so grumpy today.”

“N’um faults,” Gestus answered with a shrug. That was the odd thing about this pair. So alike in everything else, Gestus had never mastered Rankene. Dismas, on the other hand, spoke it like a court noble.

She stepped back again and turned serious. “There’s someone I want you to watch for me, and something I want you to do. You’ll have a fat purse of coins to spend. If your quarry goes to a tavern, so do you. If he goes to a brothel…”