Klava with Honey
by
Steven Brust
Vili glanced up, turned his head back toward the interior, and said, with no particular inflection, “Klava with honey for Lord Taltos.” He then turned back to me and said, “Your usual table is available, m’lord.”
If Vili wasn’t going to make any observations about the fact that I had been gone for three years, was missing a finger, and had a price on my head sufficient to make every assassin in the city drool with greed, well, I certainly wouldn’t either. I followed him to my favorite table, a deuce in the back comer that I liked not for any reasons of security, but just because I enjoyed seeing what everyone else was eating.
Vallabar and Sons is in a part of Adrilankha that looks worse than it is. The streets are narrow, the dwellings are small and most of them show their age, and the population there, mostly intown Teckla with a few Chreotha, give no appearance of wealth, or even comfort. But, as I say, it looks worse than it is. Few who live there are actually destitute; most of them being tradesmen or those employed by tradesmen and most of the families having lived there for Cycles. Valabar’s fit right in.
. . .
