Thieves World 01 – Thieves World by Asprin, Robert

nobleman whose grandfather had caused a fine family mansion to be erected on the

site had wasted his substance in gambling, and at last was reduced to eking out

his days in genteel drunkenness in an improvised fourth storey of wattle and

daub, laid out across the original roof, while downstairs Melilot installed his

increasingly large staff and went into the book – as well as the epistle

business. On hot days the stench from the bindery, where size was boiled and

leather embossed, bid fair to match the reek around Shambles Cross.

Not all fortunes, be it understood, were declining. Melilot’s was an instance.

Then years earlier he had owned nothing but his clothing and a scribe’s

compendium; then he worked in the open air, or huddled under some tolerant

merchant’s awning, and his customers were confined to poor litigants from out of

town who needed a written summary of their case before appearing in the Hall of

Justice, or suspicious illiterate purchasers of goods from visiting traders who

wanted written guarantees of quality.

On a never-to-be-forgotten day, a foolish man instructed him to write down

matter relevant to a lawsuit then in progress, which would assuredly have

convinced the judge, had it been produced without the opposition being warned.

Melilot realized that, and made an extra copy. He was richly rewarded.

Now, as well as carrying on the scribe’s profession – by proxy, mostly – he

specialized in forgery, blackmail, and mistranslation. He was exactly the sort

of employer Jarveena of Forgotten Holt had been hoping for when she arrived,