Inquisition: A bold bodyguard?

Marketplace

This open air marketplace is a veritable paradise for shoppers. Sights, sounds and smells assault the senses as soon as one sets foot in the Marketplace.

Unlike the rest of Umbar, this vast acreage set aside for merchants and commerce boasts two streets running parallel from North to South, both of them three times the width of a normal road that winds through Umbar. Another equally wide street running East to West bisects the two roads, creating a grid.

Flanking the roads and neatly lined are two story buildings, with shops on the ground level and living quarters on the upper level. Merchants from generations past have kept the tradition going, and here, people will find master craftsman and women hard at work, whether it be in jewelry making, bread baking, leatherworking or rugweaving.

In the center of the wide roads that criss cross the Marketplace are the small individual stands, tightly crammed together. Merchants who sell their goods in these stands tend to cater to the every day shoppers by selling fresh fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses and meats, along with baubles, household goods, tools and cheap, ready-made clothes. Each stand is shaded with its own canopy, and often decorated with colorful and enticing banners and signs.

At the bottom of the social order of merchants are the peddlers who hawk their goods on carts, weaving through the throngs of shoppers, offering the best deal in the Marketplace.

In the center of the grid is a stage where slaves are auctioned. When the stage is not being used to sell slaves, local artists perform for the enjoyment of the shoppers.

The sky is clear with only slight wisps of clouds overhead. The winter air is cool and dry around you.

Obvious exits:
Paij Brother's Imports, Madame Fandango's, Slave Pen, and Square of Judgement

[+TIME] Middle-earth time is:
Day on Monday, Day 27 of December.
Execute the +TIMEFRAME command for year information.

Real time is: 14:55:20 MDT on Thu May 21 2009.
IC year: 3046

[Alimah(#24218)]
 Another fine December day in Umbar, with the heat of the summer replaced by winter's cool breeze. The market is alive with activity, sellers and buyers doing brisk business. A woman wrapped in a silk veil emerges from the tangle of stalls strangely, she wears leather armor and carries a scimitar under that veil.

A little way behind her is another figure, this one clad in long, loose sand-coloured robes, though from their narrowness at the shoulder there is no concealed leather beneath them. A thin youth, brown of hair and skin, with ink-stained fingers and a satchel slung over one shoulder. He pauses by one stall to examine a trinket, then glances up again, his gaze darting this way and that until it settles on Alimah. And then he's off again, moving in her wake much as a sparrow might follow a trail of crumbs - zigzag bursts of motion interspersed by halts at this stall or that.

[Alimah(#24218)]
Alimah starts and stops...moving steadily and then suddenly stopping, changing her mind, eye caught by a trinket on this table or at that booth. In the course of this, her eyes stray sideways, catching, perhaps, the sight of the youth trailing her. Certainly she is particularly wary and on the alert. She stands for a long time at one booth, examining a length of silk, then puts it down and suddenly turns back wtih determination in the direction of Barzhil.

Barzhil glances up at the sudden movement, and sets down the little wooden dish he had been turning between thin fingers. "A pity about the grain. It quite spoils the piece," he tells the seller loftily, then steps forward to meet Alimah half way. "Good afternoon to you, Alimah!" he exclaims, a polite smile fixed on his sharp-boned features. "Is there something I can help you with? Perhaps you require a translation made?" Already he is reaching toward his satchel, looking every inch the diligent scholar.

[Alimah(#24218)]
"Oh...I don't know..." Alimah says, casually picking up the wooden dish that Barzhil has just set down. "How are you today, Barzhil? How do you like this cold weather?"

The young scribe blinks at the query. "In truth, I find Farside's walls uncomfortably draughty at this time of year. At least my quarters. When the wind gusts from the north, not even that fine lamp that Lady Azradi gave me will stay lit. So I find myself out and about a little more than usual." He pauses, noting Alimah's interest in the dish, and comments, gesturing, "Does it not look to you as though there is a hairline crack? Sometimes these things are well hidden ... What of you, Alimah? Does it irk you to be pent up here in port? A Corsair should travel, after all."

[Alimah(#24218)]
"Out and about, you say?" Alimah answers with a grin. She studies the wood, shaking her head. "Hard to tell. It might be well hidden," she says, then looks up at the youth. "Many things are hidden deep, are they not, Barzhil? Disguised and hidden within the grain?" She stares at him.

"I like the sea, but -I- obey my sworn lord."

Barzhil meets the stare with apparent nonchalance. "And very right and proper too," he agrees. "Has the Lord Alphros ordered you away from the sea then? I had not heard such a thing - I must confess, I have heard little of him at all of late."

The breeze is cool, as both the pair have already noted - odd then, that Barzhil's brow should glisten a little.

[Alimah(#24218)]
"Perhaps, Barzhil, if you spent more time attending to your duties and your oath in Farside and less time wandering out and about--making suspicious arrangements with other tower lords--then you would have heard more of Lord Alphros. Frankly, I am surprised they let you in the tower anymore at all you little sneak," Alimah hisses. "What have you been up to?" She takes a menacing step twoard him, wood bowl set down and forgotten.

Barzhil's thin brows snap together in a sudden frown as Alimah speaks. "Your lack of trust in a member of your own Tower pains me." As she moves toward him he remains where he is, perhaps bolstered up by the presence of many passers-by, though his posture is tensely rigid. "Perhaps, Alimah, if spent less time making insulting insinuations and paid more attention to the business of other towers, you would be aware that I have quite a lot of time on my hands these days, with my former client .. ahem, in residence elsewhere. As to what I have been doing, given your lack of trust I fail to see why I should tell you."

[Alimah(#24218)]
"I think, Barzhil," Alimah smiles, "that it is -you- who will have to prove your trustworthiness and your beliefs. You don't have to tell me anything--you're right. But I am quite certain Captain Azradi will have more than a few questions to ask you. As for me..why are you following me?" she demands.

Barzhil purses his lips as though he found Alimah's presence distasteful. "I am quite certain the Lady Azradi knows I am loyal to Farside. Anything that threatens the tower is of great concern to me ..." he hesitates then, and lowers his voice, before continuing in a reedy hiss, "which is /exactly/ why I am following you. With feelings running high amongst ... the lower classes, I wished to make sure that no ill befall a member of my tower, especially one who has attracted recent attention."

[Alimah(#24218)]
"You?! Are following me to protect me?!" Alimah can't help but laugh at that, but at least it breaks the tension. "I am flattered, Barzhil, flattered. I tell you what, then. I am about to enter the Shrine of Heroes to pray to my gods--the gods that the Dark Citadel and the Black Tower want to eliminate. Why don't you draw your knife or whatever weapon it is that you carry and kill any of the religious fanatics who will inevitably try to kill me when I pray there? How is that?"

At the peal of laughter Barzhil twitches. "You wish me to stand guard at the door? I can do so if you wish ..." he answers a little huskily - and, oh, doesn't he look enthusiastic. His adam's apple is bobbing up and down, a sure sign of nervousness.

He lifts his chin, however, and looks Alimah squarely in the eye. "I believe, however, that at this time a little advice might be rather more useful." And again his voice drops. "Perhaps for the sake of Farside you could excercise a little discretion? Making statements such as that in a /public/ marketplace," here he eyes the bowl-vendor warily "achieves nothing save to rid the Lady Azradi of her most trusted aide. Exactly how is that serving Farside?"

[Alimah(#24218)]
"Oh, no, not in the doorway, you're right. I tell you what. You can come inside with me and make your obesiance to the gods and _I_ will guard you. A much better arrangement, I think," Alimah grins. "After all, one should have the courage to stand up for one's principles and religion, no? And though, of course, I appreciate your concern for me, I am certain that nothing I do endangers Farside."

"After all, even Lord Alphros has come out publically against the elimination of all other gods besides the Eye. The Eye can exist here--of course we all agree to that. But not at the price of eliminating other gods. It is quite a reasonable arrangment. And I am not afraid to say it in public."

The young scribe blinks at that offer. "I am afraid," he confesses after a pause, "that I know little of the worship of the Heroes. Perhaps you could explain it to me? In .. ahem, a rather less public place. I, at least, am mindful of how my actions reflect on Farside. Our Lord Alphros' tolerance does him credit, but that is no reason to provoke the anger of those who do not share his enlightened view, is it? Now ... shall we move on from here? This wind is starting to whip up the dust." Fastidiously he brushes at the hem of his robe.

[Alimah(#24218)]
"Yes," Alimah sneers, though the expression is hidden as the gust of wind whips at her veil. "Let's go visit our sworn Lord in Farside, shall we?" She does not wait for an answer.

With a final shake of his robe, Barzhil follows, the Farside corsair's silent shadow.