It has been a day since it all happened. Their escape from the Sultan's gladitorial stables, the murder of Nizar. Samir and Sonja sit in the boiling hot little room that Samir's “friend” Jabril refers to as his safe house. The stench of urine, animal feces and decaying flesh that defines the Tanning Quarter has been a constant assault on their nostrils. The one “window” in the room is an un-openable ventilation shutter near the ceiling, on the alley side of the building. The wooden shutter covering the vent lets in barely enough light to see by, but plenty of stench. The daubed plaster of the walls is flaking and cracked in the corners of the room, and where there are cracks dry whitish mold blooms. The only other things in the small square room are two wood-framed cots made of scratchy wool, a clay chamber pot which has only been emptied once, a half-empty jug of flat tasting water, and a door into the tannery. The room is fairly swarming with flies as well, attracted by the tannery and the contents of the chamber pot.
Samir's plan had been simple, they would flee south back to Sonja's homeland and get rich prospecting gold in the Ice Horn mountains. He'd even gone so far as to book passage on a ship headed that way for the both of them. The original plan had been to only stay in the safe house overnight, and then to board the ship early in the morning and leave Ahgradin behind. Sonja had no real desire to go home, but going along with Samir meant freedom. She could always ditch him later if she had to. The thing was, there'd been some unexpected delays. The captain of the ship informed Samir through Jabril that difficulty with the Sultan's guards would cause them to delay departure for three days. Apparently all passenger bearing vessels were being held on the orders of Mit'rak, the Sultan's Lord-Captain of the Guard. Something about potentially fleeing dangerous criminals.
As the two fugitives sit staring at each other over the urn of their own bodily waste, there is a brief knock on the door. It opens a moment later, and the woman who has brought them food and emptied their chamber pot sticks her head in. She's the daughter of the tanner whose place they are hiding in. She's ebony skinned and in her early twenties. Her hair is cropped close to her scalp. Her face is plain, though she has the attractive body of a young woman, with the ample curves common to the darker races. She wears a simple and modest linen dress, and reeks of the tannery. ”I have something for you,” she says to Samir. Stepping into the room, she hands a folded up note to the Golden Jackal with stained, hard-worked hands. It's a single sheet of rough parchment, folded once. After he accepts the note she turns to leave the room.
Sonja was laying on the cot, trying to stretch out as much as she could to get what little bit of breeze to cool her as she could. The heat of the tannery was nearly unbearable, and every inch of the young woman was coated in sweat.
What was I thinking? I should have let the prince have me! At least then I wouldn't be stuck in a damn sauna.
She sighed and draped her elbow over her eyes. No, that would have just been trading one type of slavery for another. The first time I upset him he'd have me killed or returned to the arena.
But still, being cooped up in this basement was nearly as bad of a torture as the beatings she received from Nizar. She slammed the arm she had over her eyes back down against the cot and pushed herself to a seated position.
"I can't take this anymore, Samir. I've got to get out of this oven!" she says, half panting the words as it seemed that the air in the room was avoiding her lungs.
When the girl opens the door, Sonja jumps with a start, but is too weary to go for her weapons.
Samir sits with his back against the wall, shirtless, sweat dripping down his walnut brown chest. His long spindly arm snakes out to pick up the jug and he takes a long, slow drink of the stale water, setting it down with a thunk.
Could Jabril have managed to find a stinkier sh!#hole for us to wait in than this? Easy Southern gold, that's all I ask for. That and a little easy Southern p*$$%. Turning his head toward the heavens, he silently laments: Great, Terrible, and oh-so-useless Akron the Thunderer, you couldn't just let it be easy this time, could you?!?
When Sonja speaks his eyes light on her face. She has fight in her! He smiles to himself. Like Mosi did. And she can still be my introduction to piles of gold in exotic lands...and some pleasant distraction along the way. And who am I kidding, if I'd had to work that job another week I'd have killed someone anyway; the gods didn't make me for petty boring jobs.
"Abal, my Wild Rose, I'm sure we'll be on our way South before too long. Lets--" His thought is interrupted when the tanner's daughter enters.
He takes the note, nods a slow smile to her, and then unfolds it. What do we have here?
GJ,
I thought you should know, big Southron with red hair named Gunbrandr is asking around the docks about a tall southern girl with red hair booking passage. Response?
-J
Samir furrows his brow for a moment, and then laughs.
Motioning the tanner girl to wait for a reply, the Golden Jackal gives a lazy smile to Sonja and puts his hand on her shoulder. "Abal, you know a redheaded Southron named...goon-bran-DEER?" Samir struggles with the foreign name as best he can.
"Seems to be asking questions about you on the docks. Another admirer of yours perhaps? Or you think this is one of Mit'rak's boys?" He hands her the note to read herself.
Gun...Gunbrandr? Here? Looking for me? How...why? By the gods...
She takes the note and reads it over and over, trying to wrap her head around the idea of it.
"This...this is impossible. It has to be some sort of trick Mit'rak has come up with...but...how would he know Gunbrandr's name? Could it really be him, here?"
She stands and paces around in their tiny room, thinking.
"We have to see this man. Find out who it really is, without them seeing us. It's the only way we can make sure this isn't a trap."
The tanner's daughter stops, and waits expectantly.
Samir's eyes narrow. "The name means something to you clearly. Why? Anything I should know about this man?"
She casts a simple glance Samir's way, before turning her back to him and faces the pitiful excuse of a window, looking out of it for a moment before hanging her head.
"He...he's my brother," she says before breaking down into tears.
The Golden Jackal's eyes widen and a joke comes to his lips, before he sees her start to cry.
Motioning indulgence from the tanner's daughter for another moment, Samir walks over to her and lifts up her downturned head with a finger on her cheek, wiping away a tear.
"Has he hurt you? Why do you cry? We can leave him behind like the rest of Ahgradin, if you'd like...but if you want to see him, I'm sure Jabril can make it happen. Just say the word, my Rose."
When Samir asks whether her brother had hurt her, she shakes her head no.
"No...I was the one who hurt him. He would have never done anything to hurt me. I...I don't know if I want to see him or not. I guess...I guess it would depend on why he was looking for me."
"Well, this brother of yours seems to have come a long way to find you. If he's not looking for revenge, then maybe he has a winfall in the gold mines to share with you." Samir chuckles, though he seems at least a little hopeful.
"I suspect the easiest way to find out what he's looking for is to ask him. Shall I have Jabril set something up? I'm sure he could arrange something, and in a place where you could disappear again, if you don't like the way the conversation turns."
A brief look of anxious panic washes over Sonja at the thought of meeting Gudbrandr face to face. She replies, "I...I suppose. But only if I can stay out of sight until we find out why he's here. I...I have to know..."
Samir nods.
Turning to the tanner girl, he says "Then let's ask Jabril to set up a meeting between this Gud-bran-DEER and the Golden Jackal. Somewhere where the Wild Rose can wait out of sight and reveal herself or not."
Sending the girl on her way, Samir says. "And if you don't like the look of him, I doubt one man is anything your blades and my whip couldn't dispatch, working together."
Getting a bit dreamy, Samir adds, "The Golden Jackal and the Wild Rose, fighting their way across the barbaric South, making their fortune in gold. Doesn't that have a nice ring to it?
"We'll be on that ship in less than a week. Mark my word."
Sonja hangs her head again and says, "I hope so, Samir. I hope so."
She then looks him straight in the eye and says, "You have to promise me, Samir. No matter what happens, do not hurt him. If anything, I would deserve anything he would do to me..."
Growing more and more confused, Samir shrugs. "OK, fine, whatever. He's your brother, I won't hurt him. He doesn't get to hurt you either though."
What on earth is up with her? "We have to see him...but don't let him see me...but he wouldn't ever hurt me...I hurt him...YOU can't hurt him..." I hope she doesn't turn out to be more trouble than she's worth. I didn't think it was going to go down quite like this as it is...
He shakes his head and goes back to his cot, wiping his brow with a dirty rag.
The tanner's daughter clears her throat, "Do you have a reply, sir?" she asks nervously.
Samir looks a bit vexed, thinking he'd made it clear. "OK. Hand me that parchment."
In the margin he scrawls,
J- Likely her brother. Unclear motivation. Please set up meeting for me with him, somewhere where Abal can listen out of sight and reveal herself or not. Thank you. Your friend, G.J.
Samir then hands the note back to the tanner's daughter. "Please see this note back to our friend, Jabril. Thank you."
"Yes, sir," she says, nodding her head. She takes the note and leaves. She shuts the door to the room behind her.
Samir sinks back onto his cot, searching in vain for relief from the stink and the heat. He swats flies away for several minutes before giving up as they start to light on his exposed legs and shoulder. Some time passes in silence as his mind zigzags from one topic to another: imagining the gold and glory that the Golden Jackal and the Wild Rose will claim in the Pale and Barbaric South-- then feeling annoyance at their confinement and the complications arising for no good reason in his Very Fine Plan-- and then to curiosity about this brother.
"Tell me, Abal. This brother of yours, this Gun-bran-dr, what is he like? How long has it been since you saw him last?" and with a smile curling his lip, "And is he as easy on the eyes as you are, or as fiesty in the sack?"
Sonja rolls her eyes at Samir's last question, and replies, "Ew."
She flops back down on her own cot, staring at the ceiling as her mind drifts back to memories she had long tried to forget. "I honestly don't remember much about him, it was so long ago. Only thing I remember is how proud my parents were of him."