Sethra Lavode (Viscount of Adrilankha) by Steven Brust Read Free Book Online Page A

two words, tell me how you happened to fall into your profession.”
    Belly did manage to raise his head, and, with some difficulty, he said, “Oh, it was a girl.”
    “How, a girl?” said Röaana, leaning forward.
    “Certainly.”
    “Then, she rejected you?”
    “Well, yes, but not immediately. That is, the rejection came well after I had turned bandit.”
    “Well now, you perceive, you must certainly tell me this story,” said Röaana, “because I declare to you that I will die if you stop now.”
    “There is little to tell,” said Belly. “I was born into the House of the Iorich, to a family of some property. This was, you perceive, a hundred and forty-three years before the Disaster. When I reached the age of one hundred and twenty, I became apprenticed to my uncle, and read law under his tutelage. At a certain time, he was engaged to defend a young lady of the House of the Tsalmoth. She was a lovely girl, with black, piercing eyes, and she carried her head like a Dzurlord.”
    “Ah, well, go on,” said Röaana. “You must believe this conversations interests me exceedingly.”
    “I will be laconic. She was accused of stealing money from her employer. I fell in love with her, and when she was found guilty and sentenced to the galleys, I bribed one guard and struck another a good knock on the head to help her escape from the justicers; you must understand that being apprenticed to her advocate, I was permitted to see her, which not only helped in no small measure, but meant that I was unable to conceal my own rôle. And so, after I helped her to escape,there was nothing either of us could do except to leave the city and set up as bandits.”
    “Well, but were you good at it?”
    “I think so. She had something of a knack, and I, well, I must say that I took to it rather well.”
    “I understand. And then?”
    “We gradually drifted west, and, shortly after the Disaster, we met with Wadre, who convinced us to join his band. The Disaster drove us even further west, and well, here I am.” He punctuated this tale with an eloquent shrug.
    “Well, but you perceive you have not finished.”
    “How, what have I left out?”
    “My dear, have you no romance in you?”
    “Tolerably little.”
    “Well, what became of the girl?”
    “Oh, we remained together for nearly a hundred years, which is not so short a time. But then, she is a Tsalmoth, and they are sufficiently changeable. She became weary of me at last.”
    “How, did she?”
    “She claimed I had no romance in me.”
    “Ah, that is sad.”
    “Not too sad,” said Belly. “You perceive, she and I are still friends—are we not, Iatha?”
    “Oh, certainly we are, my good friend.”
    “How,” cried Röaana, “it was you?”
    “Indeed it was,” said Iatha.
    “And was his tale true and complete?”
    “So much so, my dear Tiassa, that I have no need to tell you my own history.”
    “Well, but—”
    “Yes?”
    “There is one thing I must know.”
    “What is it? If I know, I will tell you.”
    “Had you, in fact, stolen from your employer?”
    “No, I had not. He kept his savings in a tin box hidden in a secret compartment in the floor of his shop. And, well, I would have stolen it, only someone else got there first; I don’t know who.” She shrugged.
    “A delightful tale, upon my honor,” said Piro.
    “And,” added Kytraan, “I am now done eating.”
    “As am I,” said the others.
    This announcement was greeted with no small joy on the part of Lar and Clari, whose empty stomachs had been performing a duet ever since they had finished serving the repast—they now accordingly set in to devour what was left with an urgency in direct proportion to the delay; filling up the lack with good toast when the fowls had been quite picked clean.
    “Do you know,” remarked Clari in a low voice, “you ought not to cook so well. If you were not so skilled with the skillet, why, there would be more left over for us.”
    Lar did not reply,