Thieves World 01 – Thieves World by Asprin, Robert

sharpening knife and rolls of rough reed-paper; and a cloak to double as

covering at night. She had a silver pin for it – her only treasure.

Melilot had laughed, thinking he understood. He owned a pretty girl a year shy

of the fifteen Jarveena admitted to, who customarily boxed the ears of his boy

apprentices when they waylaid her in a dark passageway to steal a kiss, and that

was unusual enough to demand explanation.

But that had nothing to do with it. No more did the fact that with her tanned

skin, thin build, close-cropped black hair, and many visible scars, she scarcely

resembled a girl regardless of her costume. There were plenty of ruffians – some

of noble blood -who were totally indifferent to the sex of the youngsters they

raped.

Besides, to Jarveena such experiences were survivable; had they not been, she

would not have reached Sanctuary. So she no longer feared them.

But they made her deeply – bitterly – angry. And someday one who deserved her

anger more than any was going to pay for one at least of his countless crimes.

She had sworn so … but she had been only nine then, and with the passage of

time the chance of vengeance grew more and more remote. Now she scarcely

believed in it. Sometimes she dreamed of doing to another what had been done to

her, and woke moaning with shame, and she could not explain why to the other

apprentice scribes sharing the dormitory that once had been the bedroom of the

noble who now snored and vomited and groaned and snored under a shelter fit

rather for hogs than humans the wrong side of his magnificently painted ceiling.