Days went by, all much the same. Farielle was allowed to go about the tower, always accompanied by a guard, but the one time she tried to go outside, she was stopped. Few of the inhabitants spoke Westron, and most of them stared at her with scorn, or an avid kind of curiosity, staring and whispering and pointing. It didn't take much of this to make the girl keep mostly to her room.
The room Farielle is kept in is small, and sparsely furnished, but not uncomfortable. On one of the tables lies a basket with paints and brushes; beside it is a canvas, and more lean against the wall. All are blank however. Two silk dresses are hung against the wall; one is white and purple, the other a vivid sapphire blue. But the dress that the Gondorian prisoner wears is linen or some other, more plebian, fabric, and a faded moss-green color. This morning, she is sitting on a cushion on the floor, bent over the other table, writing something on a piece of paper.
Without the door stand two guards, ever-present.
Up the stairs come the stomp of seaboots accompanied by a soft, droning hum. There is a brief exchange of Haraidaic at the door, a bark of laughter from one of the guards and then a rotund, sweating figure enters. The corsair Bahazaid has not been in good odour with Lady Seaward for ... well, for a long while. His fondness of the bottle is too well known. Small wonder that he ends up with all the menial tasks like bringing up fresh water and carrying away the slops.
He sets down a part-full bucket of clean water near the door, then looks around, presumably for the one he's to take. But his gaze pauses on the room's occupant and fixes there.
The door behind Bahazaid is left open, and one of the guards idles in the doorway, watching. No matter that the corsair is well-known, no matter that he is one of their own: the lady's orders were clear. No visitors without a witness.
Farielle has little warning that the door is opening; a few words and the laughter and then the creak of hinges. She glances up, then hurriedly slides the paper underneath another sheet - blank - and lays the pen atop them both. The bucket with dirty water is in a corner.
It's clear from the way Bahazaid stares that he's not seen Farielle before - or does not remember seeing her, at least. His slightly unfocused gaze travels up and down the Gondorian before he looks to the guard. In his native tongue, he asks, "Is this /it/?" He sounds quite disappointed. "Why, there's no flesh on her bones at all! I like my women round." He gestures expansively in the air, before wobbling in stately fashion toward the corner, pausing by the cushions. One booted foot stumbles and kicks at the topmost, blank canvas.
Farielle shrinks backwards as the drunken man comes towards her. Then one of her canvasses goes sliding across the floor, and she snatches at it, escaping from behind the table to stand in front of the window, the canvas held like a shield across her chest.
"Pretty enough though," the guard in the doorway comments, also in Haradaic. "If you like 'em pale and scrawny." He lets his eyes travel up and down Farielle's body also before glancing away. "I'm with you, Bahazaid. I like my women to have a bit of cushion to them. Something to grab hold of you know."
Bahazaid stares at Farielle's reaction, then lets out a rolling chuckle. "No, no," he says to the girl in Westron, beaming widely and showing a missing tooth. "That is not how it should be. Here, I show you." Hitching up his trousers (for his leather belt is losing the fight against his massive belly), he meanders over to the precious paints. Lifting the brush, he proceeds to begin a crude outline in black that would be recognized by men the world over. "You wear this?"
The girl looks at what Bahazaid has painted, and her pale face turns red. "Stop," she says, trying to sound commanding. "You're ruining the brush!" Despite his 'helpful' attempt, she shows no signs of changing her canvas for his, and indeed, is trying not to look at it. The guard in the door is grinning widely.
"Huh?" Bahazaid does stop, if only briefly, to survey his handiwork. "Needs colour," he decides, dunking the brush into the red without cleaning off the black. "Looks good, yes?"
Bootfalls sound down the hall, their pace quickens as Farielle tells the man to stop, but to no more than a quick walk.
Then from beyond the door, the voice of Yildirim, addressing the guard, "Good day, sir," he chimes pleasantly, "How is your little prize this day?"
"Stop it!" Farielle says again, taking a step towards Bahazaid. She looks past him at the guard, who is doing nothing to help, but tries anyways. "Make him stop!" The guard spreads both hands in an attitude of helplessness, still grinning, and the girl, anger overwhelming embarrassment, drops her canvas and kicks Bahazaid in the shins as hard as she can. Considering that her shoes are soft and only for indoors, this may not hurt too much.
The guard still outside can be heard answering the newcomer. "She's well enough. A bit more color to her just now, I'd say." He laughs.
Bahazaid halts, brush dripping red across the carpet, at the newcomer's call. "Not much of a prize, this one," he grunts in his native Haradaic. "Scrawny as a goat. Showing her what a woman /should/ look like. Reckon I should paint her too?" He turns back, eager to apply the brush to the shrinking Farielle, who he has of course been ignoring - after all, she's just someone's Paleskin pet.
Only to find that she isn't shrinking. As the Gondorian woman's boot connects with his foot the unsteady Corsair wobbles, stumbles and then slides, crashing down on the wooden floor like a sinking battleship with the wind knocked from its sails. The floor (including Farielle's feet, perhaps?) is now as red-spattered as a crime scene.
Yildirim peers around the guard, frowning at Bahazaid and his escapade, "Friend, were it not for women who will trade gold for companionship, you would have little idea of what a woman does much less should look like," he quips in their language.
Then in Westron, Yildirim continues, "Come now, do not stress the rabbit overly much, else its heart overrun and stop. And then your prize, scrawny perhaps but worth some weight of gold, will be lost truly. And your Lady none the happier for it."
"Get out!" Farielle says in a fury. "GET OUT!" She lifts her eyes to Yildirim beyond the guard, and her anger is not lessened for seeing - or hearing - him. To the guard, she says imperiously, each word clipped, "Get him out of here, NOW."
The guardsman looks around the room, shaking his head, but takes a slow step inside, leaning down to take Bahazaid's arm. "Enough, enough, look at what you've done to the floor, man," he says. "Leave off now. Get the bucket and be done with you."
Bahazaid lies still for a moment, letting the breath return to his heavy body. But then comes the mocking voice from behind him. "Gold?" he answers in the Haradaic tongue, outraged. "You think I waste /gold/ on women when they're running around for free? Silver, maybe," he reflects consideringly as he pushes himself to his knees, and then his feet.
And then someone grabs at his arm. He shrugs the grip off as might a dog, but grunts. "Bucket," he answers, changing back into the Westron. "Very good idea." Grinning from ear to ear he lifts the bucket of dirty water and with the unthinking ease of one who's spent many years swabbing decks, sends a measured dose flying toward Farielle and her precious canvas (so much inferior to his own crude handiwork!). "All clean now," he tells the enraged foreigner cheerfully.
"Your reputation is well deserved, Bahazaid. It is unfortunate, such splendid force of will could not be displayed in Barazon," Yildirim comments, leaning against the frame of the door.
"Or at the least, I saw you not there. Your rum too heavy too carry it and yourself the distance?"
Farielle is drenched, the canvas splattered. Enraged, she brings the canvas up to smash it over Bahazaid's head, reaches to drag the empty bucket from his hands, and aims another kick - not at so innocuous a spot as the man's shins. And if she can, she will bring the bucket down on his head as well.
Bahazaid looks pleased at Yildirim's initial compliment, even if the rest of the sentence brings his brows up in a puzzled frown. "I go where I am sent," he manages at last, all the explanation anyone will get for why he was not in evidence in the recent war. Issues of drunkenness and jail would not enter into it, of course.
He doesn't turn his head from admiring his handiwork on Farielle, though, which is just as well. The canvas is rammed down over his head, his bald pate tearing a jagged hole, but the rest of Farielle's attack does not go quite as planned. Even in a mild state of inebriation, Bahazaid is very protective of his jewels. His hamlike hands remain firmly clutched round the handle of the bucket, which is held like a shield to deflect the Gondorian woman's kick. "You are wet," he tells this flower of womanhood in almost fatherly Westron. "You take these off, hmm? I could help." And then, in a burst of rapid, petulant-sounding Haradaic, he queries his own kind, "Did the Lady say we /had/ to leave her unmarked?"
"Your opinion or no, she has value to those more important than the pair of us combined," Yildirim replies also in his tongue, stepping fully into the cell casually, "And besides, would you test the semantics of a tower lord?" he asks, lifting his hand, showing but four fingers upon his left hand, "They are subtle and quick to anger." His eyes glance briefly towards Farielle, but naught else.
"Yes," the guard says flatly. "Enough." He comes around, detaching Farielle's hands from the bucket, and shepherding Bahazaid out the door. "And bring back some rags or something. I don't think Lady Seaward will appreciate paint stains on her floor."
Farielle stumbles backwards a step as the bucket is pried from her grip, but she still looks as if she would like to kill Bahaz bare-handed - her eyes are flashing, her face is flushed with fury, and her breath comes fast. She ignores Yildirim entirely this time, clenching and unclenching her fists as she watches the drunkard.
Creases appear on Bahazaid's bald forehead as he tries to decipher Yildirim's speech. Perhaps that's why he stands docile as a lamb as he is herded toward the door. At length he responds to his countrymen in their native Haradaic, "Pity. She needs a man to teach her how to act like a woman."
Nodding at the guard's final instruction, he switches to Westron, "You make her clean this up, yes? Is good for her to have work." Chuckling at the furious Farielle, he wanders off, starting to hum a little ditty about 'A sailor started painting, a girl who looked so dainty ...' It might be a while before those rags arrive.
"So, things seem to be going well for you..." Yildirim remarks to the girl dryly.
He says to the guard, his words hidden from Farielle but his tone clear, command, "Your hand in this is clear, so go fetch a mop and a bucket of fresh water. And some towels. If she catches disease, your name shall be first upon my lips to Lady Seaward."
The guard's eyes widen in alarm, and he turns hastily to leave. The second man who had been outside, steps into the doorway to watch.
Farielle's anger has not died down. If anything, it seems exacerbated by all this talking that she doesn't understand. And most definitely, it is made worse by the knowledge that she looks ridiculous, with dirty water dripping from her hair, and the front of her dress sodden and splotched. She turns her glare on the young corsair. "And you! You could have stopped him and you just stood there!"
Furiously, she looks around the room as if some weapon might be hidden there - some loose leg she could wrench off a chair and relieve her nerves by hitting Yildirim over the head as well.
Yildirim does not respond, as she scolds him. He reaches at his neck, removing the ever-present tome that hangs by his side, setting it against the frame of the door. With a quick, deft movement, he slips free of the sandy cloak that is wrapped around his shoulders, easily large enough to envelope the woman. He folds it and lays it across his arm, "Here, remove your clothes and wrap this around you before the guard returns. I will allow you some modesty, certainly he will not."
"I will have your things washed and dried."
Farielle is shaking as her anger ebbs away, leaving her with the cold aftermath. She stares at Yildirim for a moment, then nods jerkily. "Turn around?" she asks him, her voice suddenly very small. She reaches to take the cloak, putting it over her shoulders, then turns around herself, trying to wriggle out of the dress, and at the same time keep the cloak from slipping. When she is done, she wraps the cloak about her as tightly as she can, then turns back to the corsair. "Th-thank you."
"Of course," Yildirim says, turning as she takes the cloak. He moves to the door frame once more, leaning against it, "No thanks are needed. There is no honor in belittling the weak nor any glory."
"Not v-very many of your people seem to agree with you," Farielle says, clutching the cloak about herself, maybe for the warmth, which might ease her trembling.
He turns slowly, smiling, "A little dirt on your face and you would pass well for street urchin now."
"I have no towel but the cloak, and it is far from clean but dry and warm."
"So, your days seem... interesting."
"If that's wh-what you want to call it," she replies, "Wh-when everyone comes and - and stares at me as if I am in a zoo! And all of them like they wish I h-had no clothes on." The red anger has faded from her face as well, leaving it pale as usual, but now the color creeps back, and she looks away.
"And he ruined my canvas." The black and red lines stare upwards from the white canvas that lies on the floor. There is another that still leans against the wall, mostly unblemished - except for some spots where dirty water is drying.
"I do not know what these... zoos.. are, but perhaps this is one of the differences between Towers I mentioned before."
Yildirim pauses, looking the woman over for a time, then he picks up the ruined canvas and tosses it out the door. As too with the one used as a weapon.
As he does the minor work, he speaks, "I am sorry I cannot do more for you. There are many barriers placed between you and I. I have but the goodwill of Seaward that allows me to continue to visit. Even that fat oaf could have me barred from this place if he had a mind to do so. So, I could not stop him, but I did try to appeal to his pride, before you began to attack him. Again, my apologies that more could not be done."
"Zoological Gardens," Farielle says. "Where you keep strange animals to be looked at."
As he speaks, she nods and sighs and goes to sit down on the edge of her bed. "I - I am sorry I yelled at you," she says at last, in a subdued voice. "You have been kind to me. I should not have repaid that with anger."
Her eyes follow him as he works, landing on the book by the door and lingering there. Absently, she asks, "What happened to your hand?"
"Let us say that when I warned you to be truthful, it was not from a lack of knowledge in being false."
Yildirim brushes the stone as he can to whisk what water he can towards the edge of the wall, "It is one thing to torture a man towards some end, information or breaking his will. But to do so simply because you can..." he shakes his head, "So petty."
"Ah, it is well enough. Perhaps luck will shine upon me and I will have a chance to end his life for this trouble."
"I do not lie," Farielle says, simply. But she stares at him, horror in her eyes, and shivers again. Her gaze falls away, back to the book. "And - and the book?" she asks. Surely there can be no terrifying secrets hidden there. "What is it?"
Yildirim's brow creases, and he gives her an odd look, "It is a book of how people should live, behave. Your Knights have a book of a similar type, their Codex of the Swan. It is like that, only less fanciful and useless. Information gathered from hundreds of men, and women, across the lands of the south."
The girl has looked back up at him in time to see his frown. "Why do you look at me like that?"
"Oh, I see. Yes, my brother has that, but I think he would not say it was useless." She pauses. "I spoke with a man here, who said nothing could be learned from those who are now dead; it all is foolishness. But the wisdom a man has while he lives does not become foolish only because he dies."
"But is it not foolish to have wisdom but ignore it?" Yildirim's eyes tighten some, "I have read that Codex, and under compassion, there is no mention of burning families alive. Under truth, no words of breaking parlay to attack your foes. Justice has no words of hanging men from keep walls by the neck. Humility?" he snorts at this.
"Umbar can be crude, it can be cruel, harsher than the desert winds. But it puts on no airs of what it is, and does not judge people for more than what they are."
He lets out a great sigh, freeing the tension from his shoulders, "But, you have been through too much this day for a lecture from me. I will fetch some dry clothes and some fruit. Are you well enough to be left alone for a bit?"
Farielle shivers again and looks sick. "I - I had hoped that was but a tale," she whispers. "It was such a despicable thing. I did not want to believe anyone could be so vile." Bowing her head under his words, she hugs herself in the overlarge cloak.
"Yes. I will be fine." She doesn't look up; but in the distance, the footsteps of the returning guard can be heard, hurrying back with cleaning supplies.
"Then, I will return with a fine snack," Yildirim says, a warm smile forcing its way back onto his lips. He picks up the tome, dusting it off, wraps it around his slender frame, and looks back to Farielle, he opens his mouth to say more but, perhaps embarrassed by his own outburst, gives a swift, supportive nod and then takes his leave, locking the door behind him.
Farielle held the borrowed cloak about herself tightly as the servant the guard had fetched mopped up the floor. There was nothing to be done about the ruined canvas, and she avoided looking at them. Perhaps worried by Yildirim's words, the guard hardly even leered at her.
The two silk dresses hung in their place on the wall, but Farielle refused to look at them either. Her emotions kept swinging wildly from one extreme to the other, and just now, she felt she never wanted to see or hear anything to do with Lord Alphros again in her life. She would wait until the other dress had been cleaned and returned, and wear that.