Thieves World 01 – Thieves World by Asprin, Robert

would not have happened in the old days. The days BDP, Cusharlain thought;

Before this Damned Prince! Far more incredibly, if there could be grades of

incredibility, Cudget had been hanged!

Prince Stupid!

‘Ah, the lad knows he can’t hope to do injury on the prince,’ someone had told

the night proprietor of the Golden Lizard, who had told Cusharlain’s old friend

Gelicia, proprietor of the popular House of Mermaids. ‘He schemes to steal from

the very Prince-Governor, and make a quick large profit in the doing.’

Cusharlain stared at her. ‘This young gamecock means to try to rob the very

palace?’ he said, feeling stupid instantly; so she’d said, yes.

‘Don’t scoff, Cusher,’ Gelicia said, waving a doughy hand well leavened with

rings. This noon she was wearing apple-green and purple and lavender and mauve

and orange, all in a way that exposed a large portion of her unrivalled bosom,

which resembled two white cushions for a large divan and which Cusharlain was

singularly uninterested in viewing.

‘If it can be done, Shadowspawn’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Oh, go ahead, tip yourself

some more wine. Did you hear about the ring he tugged from under Corlas’s pillow

– while Corlas’s head was on it, sleeping? You know, Corlas the camel-dealer.

Or’ve you heard tell of how our boy Hanse dumb up and stole the eagle off the

roof of Barracks Three for a lark?’

‘I wondered what had happened to that!’

She nodded wisely with a trembling of chin and a flashing wing of earrings whose

diameter was the same as his wine-cup – which was of silver. Her wine-cup, that