Jhereg Read Free

it.
    I forced down my excitement. It had worked! I held out my right hand, after making sure it was steady. The egg dropped into it. I was somewhat startled by its warmth. It was of a size that fit well into my palm. I carefully placed it inside my jerkin, next to my chest.
    " Thank you, mother, " I thought to her. " May your life be long, your food plentiful, and your children many. "
    " And you, " she said, " long life and good hunting. "
    " I am not a hunter, " I told her.
    " You will be, " she said. And then she turned from me, spread her wings, and flew out from the clearing.
    Twice in the following week I almost crushed the egg that I carried around next to my chest. The first time I got into a fight with a couple of jerks from the House of the Orca; and the second, I started to carry a box of spices against my chest while working in the restaurant.
    The incidents shook me up, I decided to make sure that nothing happened again that would put the egg in danger. To protect myself against the former, I learned diplomacy. And to take care of the latter, I sold the restaurant.
    Learning diplomacy was the more difficult task. My natural inclinations didn't run that way at all, and I had to be on my guard all the time. But, eventually, I found that I could be very polite to a Dragaeran who was insulting me. Sometimes I think it was that, more than anything else, which trained me to be successful later on.
    Selling the restaurant was more of a relief than anything else. I had been running it on my own since my father died, and doing well enough to make a living, but somehow I never thought of myself as a restaurateur.
    However, it did bring me up rather sharply against the problem of what I was going to do for a living--both immediately and for the rest of my life. My grandfather offered me a half-interest in his witchcraft business, but I was well aware that there was hardly enough activity to keep him going alone. I also had an offer from Kiera, who was willing to teach me her profession, but Easterner thieves don't get good prices from Dragaeran fences. Besides, my grandfather didn't approve of stealing.
    I sold the place with the problem still unresolved, and lived off the proceeds for a while. I won't tell you what I got for it; I was still young. I moved into new quarters then, too, since the place above the restaurant was going to be taken by the new owner. Also, I bought a blade. It was a rather light rapier, made to my measurements by a swordsmith of House Jhereg, who overcharged me shamefully. It was just strong enough to be able to counter the attacks of the heavier Dragaeran sword, but light enough to be useful for the ripostes by which an Eastern fencer can surprise a Dragaeran swordsman, who probably doesn't know anything beyond
    attack-defend-attack.
    Future unresolved, I sat back and tended my egg.
    * * *
    About two months after I had sold the restaurant, I was sitting at a card table, doing a little low-stakes gambling at a place that allowed Easterners in. That night I was the only human there, and there were about four tables in action.
    I heard raised voices from the table next to me and was about to turn around, when something crashed into my chair. I felt a momentary surge of panic as I almost crushed the egg against the edge of the table, and I stood up. The panic transformed itself to anger, and, without thinking, I picked up my chair and broke it over the head of the guy who'd fallen into me. He dropped like a hawk and lay still. The guy who'd pushed him looked at me as if deciding whether to thank me or attack me. I still had the chair leg in my hand. I raised it, and waited for him to do something. Then a hand gripped my shoulder and I felt a familiar coldness on the back of my neck.
    "We don't need fighting in here, punk," said a voice behind my right ear. My adrenalin was up, and I almost turned around to smash the bastard across the face, despite the knife he held against me. But the training I'd