The autumn sun is actually almost not quite blazing hot. Farielle is nearly comfortable, wearing a burnoose kind of wrap around her face to shield her from the sun and the plain green dress (with long sleeves) that Alphros did /not/ give her. The marketplace is a scene of chaos to one unused to it; though it really is much like markets anywhere - still Farielle's feet slow and she looks at stalls on this side and that. No fewer than ten guardsmen in the colors of Seaward Tower are clustered around her, some closer than others; some a little ways off, threading through the crowd. Finally, "You said slippers?" she says to Nisrin. There is a strange hesitance in her voice.
"Yes, slippers," says Nisrin impatiently, clad in an unobstrusive brown cloak and at home in the crowd, jostling here and there. "Come, or else they'll all be gone!" She reaches for Farielle's arm, guiding her towards a red-draped stall. A young woman, dressed in brightly colored silks, watches them carefully as she sits behind a display of jewelled, curve-toed shoes.
Farielle is doing her best to ignore the plethora of guardsmen about her, and as Nisrin tugs at her arm, she follows - heedless of the men reforming around and behind her. "Oh!" Her eyes run over the display pausing on one pair and then another. Reaching out, she touches one particular pair, a little less gaudy than some others, but done in shades of turquoise and sapphire and aqua.
"The young mistress wishes to try it on?" suggests the sales-lady in a voice smooth as oil, gesturing Farielle to sit upon a silken hassock. One glance towards the formidable array of blue-clad guards, and the beaming face of Nisrin, and she moves with a great deal more politeness and caution.
The Gondorian girl hesitates a little longer, glancing at Nisrin with an odd look in her eyes - which is about all of her face that can be easily seen just now. Then she allows herself to be persuaded onto the low stool, and the slipper to be fitted over her slender foot. She holds it out for Nisrin's perusal. "What do you think?"
"It looks nice," says Nisrin absently. Her eyes run disapprovingly over the green dress, "But it does not quite match your current outfit. Do you think it will go well with the sapphire?"
Farielle's eyes are suddenly hard and angry and she starts to snap something, then stops herself. Making herself look down at the slippers again, she considers them, then nods. "Yes. I think so. Don't you?" She wriggles her toes, testing the slippers' comfort. "Very well. How much are they?"
"For the commoner it is forty silvers," intones the sales-lady, her eyes lowered, "but for the guest of Seaward I ask only twenty silvers and kindness in return."
"Twenty," Farielle repeats. She glances over at Nisrin raising her eyebrows in a silent question - is that too much?
"It is a fair price," replies Nisrin, straight-faced, "but you also forget she is the friend of Nisrin Hashikh, who paid you the due price for a scarlet pair a week ago. Fifteen."
"I know and remember," says the girl levelly, "yet the price is fair. I ask for eighteen."
"Sixteen."
"Seventeen, Lady Nisrin."
"Is that well with you, Farielle?" asks the corsair girl of the Gondorian.
"Yes," Farielle says, putting on a regal air. "That is well." She pulls out the small pouch Nisrin had given her and carefully counts out the money, passing it to the girl. Then she glances down at her foot. "I can't wear them with this dress," she decides regretfully. "Will you wrap them, please?"
As the girl takes the money with a small bow and wraps the slippers in linen and canvas, Nisrin smiles and says to Farielle, "I told you they were nice. Do you go to markets often?"
"Not often," Farielle replies. "We live in the country, and merchants and seamstresses come to us. And the last year, I was in Dol Amroth, where there is a large market, but I was much too busy to enjoy it often." She takes the package with a smile. "Thank you." Then looks around and hands it to the nearest guard to carry. "He might as well make himself useful," she confides to Nisrin, a sparkle of laughter in her eyes. "Where shall we go now? I would like something for my hair, then I can give you your butterfly pin back."
"Oh ... you can keep it," says Nisrin, smiling at the burly Seaward guard with the unexpectedly dainty bundle. "It is much too garish upon my skin, anyway," she adds as they continue among the stalls. "Whereas it suits your eyes perfectly..."
"Are you sure?" Beneath the burnoose, Farielle is smiling, as evidenced by the crinkles beside her eyes. But the expression in those eyes is worried. "Then... I thank you. It is much too kind of you." She glances around and her attention is caught by a stall filled with various carved wooden things. "Oh! There - for Amestris, I will get that." It is a comb, carved from a wood with colorful swirls in the grain. She hands over the coin the shopkeeper demands.
"And now..." The girl keeps her tone light. "Are there... ornamental daggers? Not the sort really for being used, but for looking at?"
"Now, now," says Nisrin concernedly, but the current of the crowd pushes them towards that stall, "warriors and ladies have no need for ornamental weapons..."
Farielle catches a glimpse of what she wants - or what she thinks is what she wants - through the passersby, and heads for it determinedly. "It's not for me," she says airily.
"For the Lord Alphros? He likely has his own smiths, he would not go to the market for a knife..." protests Nisrin, but must silently fight her way through the passers-by in order to keep up.
"That isn't the point." Farielle abruptly sounds furious. "I will not..!" She bites off the words, and moderates her tone. "I will not go to him as a beggar," she says, turning to look at Nisrin as she comes up to the stall. Various decorative knives hang there - the sort that are of little good in any real fight, but are carved and adorned and bejeweled until they glow against their dark background.
"It will be a nice addition to his armoury, I am sure," comments Nisrin, her arms crossed as she looks up to the beautifully shiny displays. A dark turbaned figure sits in one corner but makes no move to approach them.
Farielle looks carefully through the displayed daggers and knives, pointing finally at one hanging farther to the back. It is slender, smaller than some, but looks sharp enough; the handle is an ornate carving of a snake; a red gem sparkles for its eye. "How much is this one?" she asks the figure in the corner.
The wizened salesman grins at Farielle, chuckling through his gapped set of teeth. "A pretty price for a pretty maid! For seventy pieces of silver, the humble work of Bakri shall be yours. But I do hope that the miss was not born under the stars of the Hare or the Dove - for then the snake is a curse unto its mistress, a bite well-misplaced."
"Which are the stars of the Hare and Dove?" Farielle asks curiously, with another glance at Nisrin for pricing information.
The salesman shakes his head in sad disbelief and Nisrin answers hurriedly, "Your people sail by different stars. But it is a good price for a knife."
"Oh." Farielle's eyebrows knit in a frown of momentary displeasure, but she shrugs and counts out the money, once more asking for her purchase to be wrapped. The little pouch is getting lighter, and she weighs it in her palm, before turning to Nisrin. "Now. I was going to buy you a surprise but I don't know what you like, so... you will have to tell me, and I will get it, and it will be a gift for you, even if it is not a surprise." The smile has returned to her face, even if it is a little over-bright and hectic.
"I ..." Nisrin blinks owlishly as they step back out into the afternoon sun. "There is nothing from the bazaar that I would need, Farielle," she says reluctantly, though her voice is not unkind. "Let us get some ices instead? Or do Gondorian women drink alcohol as well?"
Farielle looks over at the girl, and her smile vanishes. "I see," she says in a subdued voice, and looks away to hide her face. She is silent for a long minute before saying expressionlessly, "No. Let us go back."
"I am sorry - I did not mean to..." Nisrin begins, realizing her mistake too late. "Fine," she says finally, and turns around to yell at some of the guards (who are falling behind) in Haradaic.
"You were here, buying slippers for yourself," Farielle says, not looking at the other girl. "It is not that you don't wish anything from the bazaar, but that you don't wish anything from me." She blinks hard, trying to keep her voice level, and holds out the small pouch. "Thank you for loaning me the money. I am sorry if .. if you were made uncomfortable by being seen with a - a Stonelander."
"That is not what I meant!" hisses Nisrin angrily, pushing the pouch away. "I enjoyed shopping with you; it is much better than going with a pair of servants or Eron! But it is your silver now and I would not have it spent on gifts that I could buy myself. Keep it," the girl says, her voice heavy with disappointment, "and pay it back when you are Queen of Gondor, should you remember a simple corsair woman."
Farielle tucks the pouch away mutely. "I know you could buy it yourself," she says at last. "It is just - you have been kind to me and I wanted to give you something. What else have I to spend it on? I didn't mean to offend you." She sounds as if she is on the edge of tears, but pride keeps them from falling and keeps her back straight against the stares and whispers and hisses of others around. Not so many as there could be though - she is well-guarded, and very little of her pale skin is visible. "Why do you think I would forget you?" She notably says nothing about the likelihood or not of her becoming Queen.
Nisrin purses her lips and steps closer, reaching out for Farielle's hand. "When people become great," she says in a low voice, their heads close, "their memories grow dim. Even blood cannot stop that."
A hand clasps hers. For a second, Farielle is motionless, then she squeezes Nisrin's fingers. "Then," she says simply, equally quietly, "They are not truly great. Those who are truly great remember their debts and their friends, and are thoughtful for the weakest of their people's needs. My father taught me this, and he is wise."
Nisrin blinks, then smiles. "You would make a great Queen," she admits, swinging her hand a little as she starts down the street. "I will show you the birds and the monkeys, although that would be more silver than we started out with! They are chattersome, but friendly."
"Then you are probably the only person who thinks so," Farielle says, quietly. But she summons up an answering smile, and with a fair assumption of gaiety says, "Lead on! Do you know, I have never seen a monkey?"
"They are intelligent, perhaps more so than some corsairs! The only thing they will not do is talk," laughs Nisrin, tugging Farielle and her train of guards down the road.
...
Lominzil had decided that short of murdering a ship-captain and taking his vessel south, he would find a way to where Farielle was kept. He found it.
The men of House Telpekhor were civil and kind in their offering of sympathy, but could give naught else to the family Girithlin. House Bragollach guessed of Lominzil's plans and warned him against chasing his own end in sorrow. Lominzil wondered at what Sir Imrakhor thought of sorrow, having caused it in the hearts of so many.
He was summoned not long after that to the castles of Dol Amroth. There, he found his knight-captain again.
They spoke little of warnings and pleasantries, cutting swiftly to intent. In this they were alike.
Lominzil was led through pitch darkness beneath the hidden caverns, the seaworn bowels beneath Dol Amroth which existed but were never known: hallows in jeweled caves, catacombs of the honored dead, with only dry dust and statues to guard their oath-sworn names. And then, it seemed that they came above ground once again, to set eyes upon the most treasured and strategic part of Imrahil's domain.
The sea.
It was an underground cave by the sea - salt-smelling, damp, slanted sunbeams coming in from the glittering bay - that might have held hundreds of battle-ready men against some seaborne onslaught of corsairs. This haven was filled not with men, however, but with ships - warships all of them, marked only by the lack of blazon and the grimness of their men.
Imrakhor said, as they approached a great ship with black sails furled like swan's wings: "The Draugrim call upon men for various reasons. In your case, we simply have questions."
They draw closer. Where before Lominzil's eyes were wide in awe, they are now hooded with caution, the blue barely visible beneath dark lashes. He blinks at the last statement of the Knight, and says quietly, "I will answer them."
Imrakhor continues to lead Lominzil onwards, to the very docks themselves. Before The Black Swan stand three waiting men of upright and noble bearing.
"Answer honestly," whispers Imrakhor. He then steps away from the Squire.
"Lords," the Girithlin squire says to the men with an incline and bow of slender shoulders.
The three nod to Lominzil before one speaks out over the rest. "How would you save your sister, were it up to you?" he asks.
The youth answers steadily, "My mother grieves childless in Edhellond and my father is wise. They will prepare a ransom should it be demanded, and I respect their decision." Yet a flicker in his eyes indicates that this is not so.
"You did not answer the question," says the Draugrim.
"No. Forgive me," answers the Squire, his voice catching jaggedly as if on a stone. "I have respected my father. Yet time's whim may be the death of his daughter. I would return to the South myself, that I might find her and bring her from that place. The lands I have studied; the plan is mine own."
"You may respect your father and his wisdom but also disagree with him, Squire," say the Draugrim. "It is likely she is held in Umbar itself. How will you get into Umbar? Do you speak the language of Harad?"
"I have never seen its walls nor uttered its tongue," admits Lominzil. "Yet there are dyes that will color skin and there are men who are born mute. I shall not be found." A pause. "But if to Harad I should go, then I risk abandoning my Oath to the Prince. I have leave from Dol Amroth, but not from Gondor."
"We shall see to your Oath and protect it in your absence," says the first of the Draugrim. "And we shall provide you passage to Harad, if you must go."
"But we do not offer such gifts freely, Lominzil Girithlin." The second. "Your death awaits you in Harad. Perhaps. Should you return, however, it shall be as one of us."
And the last man: "That is our price."
"I will chase death to find my sister. It has not yet stopped to wait for me, lord, but one day it must." Lominzil's gaze is keen as a predator's, and he looks to the Draugrim. "Should I return, what would you have of me?" he asks.
"Why, we are the very architects of peace," and that is all he offers. "Do you accept our terms?"
Lominzil looks once to Imrakhor, then steps forward, grimness and resolve etched into his fair face. "Yes," he answers firmly. "Provide me passage, lord, and I will be yours should I return. My eyes have seen Thurilonde; my steps cannot go back."
"So be it," say the Draugrim. "You have a fortnight to prepare."
The three turn away to attend to other duties, leaving Lominzil again alone with Imrakhor.
"You can tell no one of what has transpired today," the Knight warns. "Nor will you be able to speak of what is to come. Your silence is also your bond."