Night Shade

My Background

First things first; I will write a little bit about myself, something I rarely ever relate.

At the tender age of four, I believe, my parents or parent or nurse maid or whomever, left me on the doorstep of a young merchant’s home. I do not remember who it was that left me there because my memory does not go back that far or I have blocked it from my mind so that I won’t remember. The merchant was a kindly man if I am remembering it correctly, but he could not take me in and therefore found a more suitable person to raise me, someone that he had some dealings with in the past as I was told about later. I was passed over to him inside of a month.

The man who agreed to care for me brought me to a place where a woman lived, her name was Teredelia and she is now dead so I do not mind revealing her name here. She was barely into her thirties when I was brought to live with her, barely old enough to have her own children much less a child of four or five.

The next six years was spent with her, learning how to be a little girl and playing and having fun. On the anniversary of my arrival with Teredelia, six years later, the man who was taking care of Tere and me came to us to tell us that he was going to start teaching me a trade. Tere argued with him for a long time and I was not allowed to listen to the conversation but it seemed that the man was going to teach me his trade and whatever it was it was not the type of thing that I was supposed to be learning. I was instantly intrigued and excited to learn something that was not supposed to know.

For the next several years I spent my days with Tere and a lot of the evenings with our host. The training was subtle at first, and it was fun. He taught me about counting and money while Tere was instructing me on the letters and words. My benefactor said that the numbers were far more important and that the more I learned of them the better off I would be. The truly fun part was that after a year or so he began using real coin for our learning and the more I got right the more of it I got to keep.

I did not begin school at the age of twenty like most children. Instead I was given my first sword lesson. We had been doing calisthenics before our lessons for about a year but on that day he lobbed a sword at me and told me it was a birthday present. Then he told me that if I could touch him with it he would give me a pouch of gold and a day in the market to buy anything I wanted. That bribe lasted for a long time, of which I am embarrassed to say, I could not touch him. When I finally did get my first touch, I had an amazing shopping experience and it was the highlight of my year. The very next day, however, my benefactor had a sword of his own to help him defend himself against me. The same bribe was in affect, when I could touch him with it I got another pouch and another trip to the market. The funny thing was that as he was dodging me without any other defense he kept talking to me, telling me where I was moving that was wrong and how I should move to make it better and when and where to strike and how to defend when he got too close. I did not recognize it as teaching and was therefore learning at my own pace and he never yelled at me or punished me or anything else that would have slowed me down.

On the day that society determines that a woman is mature enough to begin seeking a spouse or a trade of her own is the day that we turn twenty five. It was on that day that I was told everything by my benefactor, and I do mean everything. I won’t bore you with the details of that extremely long conversation suffice it to say that I was a changed woman after that. I became his apprentice.

Two years later he brought me to the guild where I awed the entire guild with my ability and intelligence and I was voted into the guild with unanimous yeses and was given my guild badge and apprenticeship under my master for real. As an apprentice the guild could not give me any jobs of my own but my master had me helping him on his all the time.

Teredelia passed away a few years after I had joined the guild and I took over the residence of her home, although I was rarely there at the time because I was always helping my master and learning the trade of being an assassin. So at the young age of thirty two, when most woman my age were just beginning to start a trade or finishing their advanced learning school, or getting married and having kids, I got my first real job.

My master had told the guild that I was ready so they gave him an assignment that he passed on to me. Again I won’t bore you with details that are completely unrelated to this story, suffice-it to say that I completed my job efficiently and affectively. My master took me shopping for the last time and released me from my apprenticeship. I took the title of tradesman and began working in earnest and on my own. I have heard rumors that I was the fastest at completing assignments and that I took nearly double the jobs of anyone else had over the next several years. I was doing well for myself and was proud of who and what I had become. I was even able to pay my former master for the house that I was living in so that it could be all mine.

After five short years the guild brought me up to the review board again and this time they gave me the assignment that would make me a master. Once I completed that job they made me a master and I was able to pick and choose my assignments as well as work outside the guild when needed, although, I did have to give them their cut from those jobs. That was eight years ago.

Now for the reason I am in lockup and this written confession.