On Fri, 2003-03-07 at 22:12, Philip Hart wrote: > On Fri, 7 Mar 2003, David Silberstein wrote: > > > [Afterthought] > > > > On Fri, 7 Mar 2003, David Silberstein wrote: > > > > >On Fri, 7 Mar 2003, Philip Hart wrote: > > > > > >> And isn't taking out the leading Dragon a job for the Jhereg's > > >> leading worker? In the absence of Mario, would that be Istvaan? > > >> He's assigned to take out Vlad, perhaps the #1 priority of the > > >> House. Note however that he isn't involved in _Jhereg_ when > > >> Mellar was #1 > > > > > > > There are probably more factors involved in hiring a Jhereg assassin > > than we know. Vlad was probably chosen to take out Mellar for various > > reasons, including his friendship with Morrolan, not because he was > > the "best". And Vlad's assessment of Mario being the "best" may not > > be 100% accurate. And Istvan may have simply been the one that > > accepted the contract on Vlad, after better assassins refused for > > various reasons. And we don't really *know* who took out Baritt; it > > might have been Laris, or Laris might simply have been the agent that > > the SiG & StY used, and Mario *was* the one who took out Baritt. > > And note that Laris is now dead. > > So to expand on my "thinking" leading up to the paragraph above, how many > high-profile workers are there in the Jhereg? We don't have even a > guesstimate for the population of the Empire (do we?), but can there be > one million Jhereg? Say 60% are in the Right Hand, 5% of that do work, 1% > of that are top-notch, that would be 300, and Vlad has gone through about > a dozen of those personally? One thing to remember is that not every Jhereg is a member of the business end of the House. For example, Vlad's father wasn't a member, and Vlad wasn't a member at first. And I'd assume that the Jhereg representatives in the Palace aren't active members in the business end of the House, even though I'm sure they're persuaded one way or another to represent the business end's interest. > (I assert that Vlad has long been considered > highly elite - I'll agree. Consider how he's moved up from being an enforcer to a boss and winning a Jhereg war all withing an Easterner's lifespan. If you're a Dragaeran Jhereg and you hear that, then hear he still does work, he'd probablly get a lot of respect from you, and thus more likely to get important jobs.