day-man, who was trying hard to gather up his lower lip so as to close his mouth
while staring at her. He remembered to nod and she said, “When next you see it,
it will be sent you, and you will honor it, and my wishes.”
He assured her that he would, indeed.
Taking no breakfast and seeming uninterested in the chatter of last night’s
bloody PFLS activities, she went forth into ratty Thieves’ World of the creaking
commerce and cracking, peeled stucco and stones leaking their mortar onto the
streets and “streets.” Its powder freighted the wind that whistled along those
streets, disarranging cloaks and scarves while bearing the scent of death.
She was noticed wherever she went in damned Sanctuary. Hair of a dark red, the
shining maroon of a rich old wine. Large eyes that were perhaps hazel and
perhaps green-it depended upon the viewer, and where she was standing with
relation to the sun. A face in which the bones were prominent and the mouth
generous. (Some few marked the absence of what passed for dimples and later for
creases and were truly smile-lines, and pounced to the conclusion that,
incredibly for one of her looks, she had had no happy life.) A figure to turn
dry the mouths of men and never mind their ages. A lackey called Wints whose
face was washed and who strove to look mean while keeping his hand on one of
those dauntingly long Ilbarsi “knives” thrust through a red-and-yellow sash worn
over his old brown cloak.
In the Bazaar she crossed a brown, clutching palm with a small silver coin, and