‘The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles’ – Clark Ashton Smith

I had a lot of fun with ‘The Tale of Satampra Zeiros’, last week, so when I realised that there was another tale featuring the rotund thief (thanks for the heads up @AnthonyPerconti) there was no chance that I’d leave it as long, as I did last time, before picking up my trusty copy of ‘Emperor of Dreams’ and giving it a read. And to cut a long story short, that’s exactly what I did this morning during my trip into work, finishing it off over a bacon roll in the office. ‘The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles’ is a slightly different read to ‘The Tale of Satampra Zeiros’ but is no less fun for it…

Let it be said as a foreword to this tale that I have robbed no man who was not in some way a robber of others. In all my long and arduous career, I, Satampra Zeiros of Uzuldaroum, sometimes known as the master thief, have endeavoured to serve merely as an agent in the rightful redistribution of wealth. The adventure I have now to relate was no exception: though, as it happened in the outcome, my own pecuniary profits were indeed meager, not to say trifling.

 Age is upon me now. And sitting at that leisure which I have earned through many hazards, I drink the wines that are heartening to age. To me, as I sip, return memories of splendid loot and brave nefarious enterprise. Before me shine the outpoured sackfuls of djals or pazoors, removed so dexterously from the coffers of iniquitous merchants and money-lenders. I dream of rubies redder than the blood that was shed for them; of sapphires bluer than depths of glacial ice; of emeralds greener than the jungle in spring. I recall the escalade of pronged balconies; the climbing of terraces and towers guarded by monsters; the sacking of altars beneath the eyes of malign idols or sentinel serpents.

Often I think of Vixeela, my one true love and the most adroit and courageous of my companions in burglary. She has long since gone to the bourn of all good thieves and comrades; and I have mourned her sincerely these many years. But still dear is the memory of our amorous or adventurous nights and the feats we performed together. Of such feats, perhaps the most signal and audacious was the theft of the thirty-nine girdles.

So we’re back in the head of Satampra Zeiros with a reminder that Zeiros does the best introductions, he really does. If Zeiros was a real person, I would probably pay him to follow me around and introduce me to everybody that I met, just to see what I said 😉 It’s a slightly different Zeiros whom we meet here though, older and perhaps with one guilty eye on what the afterlife holds, hence the disclaimers in that first paragraph. He only robbed the dishonest (honest!) and he only wanted to make sure that everyone had a share… Yeah, right 😉 What I like though is the feeling that Zeiros knows he’s not being entirely honest, and he knows that we know. We’re all encouraged to buy into the fact that Zeiros was harmless back in the day and he’s certainly harmless now… isn’t he?

Either way, lets talk about the ‘Girdle Heist’…

Ashton Smith gives us the same richly detailed background, that was such a treat in ‘The Tale of Satampra Zeiros’, but ‘The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles’ is a very different tale in that the supernatural elements are practically non-existent here; the raid takes place in a temple but that’s about it, I’m not counting how the temple is cleared for reasons that become obvious once you read the story. What we get is a straight heist tale, complete with planning session beforehand and all the action that you’d expect. It’s straightforward but it’s not a long tale so there isn’t a lot of room to get all complicated. The real joy is in the finale where… well, read it and see for yourself, if you know your heist tales then it won’t be a surprise but it’s still well worth the read.

It’s not often that you’ll find me saying that a Clark Ashton Smith story is fun but ‘The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles’ was just that. You can read it over Here and I recommend that you do. It’s a short story and you’ll get a lot out of it.