Thieves World 3 – Shadows of Sanctuary by Asprin, Robert

and dangerous in its light.

Wess stared up into the tall, lithe woman’s furious eyes. Her jugular vein

pulsed against the point of the blade. If she made a move towards her knife, or

if any other friends moved at all, she was dead.

‘I meant no disrespect -‘ She almost said ‘sister’ again. But it. was not the

familiarity that had caused offence: it was the word itself. The woman was

travelling incognito, and Wess had breached her disguise. No mere apology would

repair the damage she had done.

A drop of sweat trickled down the side of her face. Chan and Aerie and Quartz

were all poised on the edge of defence. If Wess erred again, more than one

person would die before the fighting stopped.

‘My unfamiliarity with your language has offended you, young gentleman,’ Wess

said, hoping the tavern-keeper had used a civil form of address, if not a civil

tone. It was often safe to insult someone by the tone, but seldom by the words

themselves. ‘Young gentleman,’ she said again when the woman did not kill her,

‘someone has made sport of me by translating “frejojan”, “sister”.’

‘Perhaps,’ the disguised woman said. ‘What does frejojan mean?’

‘It is a term of peace, an offer of friendship, a word to welcome a guest,

another child of one’s own parents.’

‘Ah. “Brother” is the word you want, the word to speak to men. To call a man

“sister”, the word for women, is an insult.’

‘An insult!’ Wess said, honestly surprised.

But the knife drew back from her throat.

‘You are a barbarian,’ the disguised woman said, in a friendly tone. ‘I cannot