employer, for he was an ambitious and ever-hungry man. An amenable man, to
opportunities for profit and new contracts. Today he was merely collecting
information about the former apprentice ofCudget Swearoath, who had been swung
shortly after the new Prince-Governor came out from Ranke to ‘whip this Thieves’
World of a town into shape’. Above bribery, beyond threat, the (very) young ass
actually meant to govern Sanctuary! To clean it up! Young Kadakithis, whom they
called Kittycat!
So far he had angered the priesthood and every thief and Changer in Sanctuary.
And a good three-fifths of the taverners. And even a number of the garrison
soldiers, with those baby-clean, revolting competent Hell Hounds of his. Some of
the old villa-dwellers thought he was just wonderful.
Probably wets his bed, Cusharlain thought with a jerk of his head – at the same
time as he expertly twitched his robe’s hem away from the touch of a legless
beggar. Cusharlain knew very well that the fellow’s legs were single-strapped up
under his long, long, tattered coat. Well, and well. So one boy of nineteen or
twenty, a thief, hated another, a half-brother of the Emperor sent out here
because it was the anus of the Empire, good and far from the Rankan imperial
seat! This the customs inspector had learned today, while gathering information
for his secretive and clandestine employer. Hanse, Hanse. In all his life this
Hanse had held regard for one person other than his cocky self: Cudget
Swearoath. Respected senior thief. And Cudget had been arrested, which certainly