The Merchant Who Would be King

New Friends

Marian and Ravellis and Lucia went shopping. If they were going to possibly have Weesely on their tail, they wanted more protection than they currently had. They'd taken a hundred gold off Hadiin and had set off to buy potions and equipment. A hundred gold might not buy much when it came to enchanted gear, but it could buy plenty of daggers, leather armour, and more mundane goods.

The sword-witch virtually hummed with excitement. "This is such an interesting turn of events!" she exclaimed. "Don't you think?"

"I guess," Marian's voice was uncertain.

Rave's excitement lowered slightly. "Ah. Because it's Hadiin? Were things that bad between you two?"

"No. Well." She growled. "I don't know. I mean, things started off pretty good. I was pretty happy with how things were going. Especially when we made all that money off the ice cream. But then..."

"What happened?"

"We both went to my room after celebrating. Both kind of drunk. He surprised me by putting my share of the money on the bed. You know, so I could lay in it."

"And, er, yes."

"Have really hot sex," Lucia chimed in with a coy smile. "I saw it all."

"That. Yeah." A flash of horrible memories cut through Marian's mind and she shivered. "Lucia came flying through the window when we were asleep. Woke us up. Then some assassin came through, tried to kill her, then came after us." Her hand touched her throat. "I almost died."

"That's horrible. I'm so sorry." Rave looked sad and put her hand on Marian's back, stroking it in sympathy.

Marian tried to shake off the shiver her brush with death still gave her. "To be fair, it was Hadiin who got them to bring healing potions before we died." She frowned. "But then, it was like the only thing he cared about was the money the assassin had taken. He barely said two words to me as I'm laying there, covered in blood, desperate to be alive. He didn't speak until the next day and then it was about getting the money back. He...became this pathetic...loser. I didn't like who I saw."

Ravellis seemed sympathetic. "Mmm. I understand."

"Yes, I'm afraid he's not perfect," Lucia added. "We had an incident too."

This intrigued Marian. "How so?" Her feelings about the female thief were confusing. And she found it odd that Lucia kept her collar up at all times, covering the lower half of her face. Instinctively, she didn't want to trust her, yet she was curious, all the same.

Lucia explained. "That night, after the assassin came, I fled. But I only made it a block away. Hadiin found me. He saved my life even though he had no reason to. He bought me a healing potion instead of turning me into the Watch."

A healing potion? Marian knew just how expensive those were and just how little money he'd had at the time. He'd spent half his gold to save the woman who'd tried to steal from him?

"For...reasons...I lead a lonely lifestyle. He seemed like someone I could trust, maybe, and he knew one of my secrets already, so I thought, why not take a chance? He wanted to try to work together and I wanted to expand my social circle. We made a deal. Although, I must say, he was not trying to replace you." She put a hand on Marian's arm to reassure her.

"What? What do you mean?" Marian tried to act like she didn't care but, truthfully, it did feel crappy that Hadiin might have replaced her with another partner only hours after they'd argued.

"He talked about how bad he felt when things went wrong between you two. He wanted to make amends and get back together with you."

"Hmm," was the extent of Marian's reply. Did she believe Lucia?