FireSweet

Not a Common Vagabond

“Saldré,” they chanted.  “Saldré!  Saldré!” 

                I froze in the doorway, stricken by the sound of my name.  A hand pressed against the small of my back urging me forward through the crowd. 

                “She’s that one!” a man cried, pointing to the girl in front of me.

                “Her nose is too broad!” another man yelled.  “It’s the girl in the back!”

                “She looks scared!” a third pointed out.  He turned his eyes on me.  “I think that one is Saldré!”

                “Too lost,” said the first man.  “Saldré knew the control she held.”

                “Let them pass, she is not one of them!”

                The crowd parted slightly and we rushed through, eager to distance ourselves from their scrutiny.  The girls around me all headed off in a single direction.   I broke away from them and headed back to my own camp, they were all probably headed to Carnie’s camp.  I walked across the common in the dawn, feeling the exhaustion of the past 24 hours weighing on me suddenly.  I wanted to lie down in the tall grass and sleep for a few days, to disappear from those who watched for my vulnerability every second.  Yet I trudged onward, dragging myself up the ladder and down the stairs to my bunk.  The rooms around me rumbled, the snores of drunken men echoing down the hall. 

                Of course sleep had barely found me before someone burst into my room.

                “CAP’N WANTS YOU” Fame-jujio thundered.

                I rolled out of bed, throwing my daggers into my sash.  I followed Fame-jujio up to the top deck and into the Captain’s cabin.  Fame left the room immediately, slamming the door behind him.  Despite his tousled hair, Mají-jalio looked awake and attentive as I stood before him.  His eyes darted to the door behind me, waiting until he was sure it would not open again.

                “Did you have a good time at the Conclave last night Gittoran?” he asked.

                “I did what I had to sir, it was very… different.”

                He nodded absentmindedly out the window, more to himself than to me.  He walked over and stood before the window, polishing the hilt of his rapier absentmindedly with the cloth that bound his hands.  We stood that way for a minute, in silence while he wiped away the non-existent dust as he toyed with the hilt. 

                “Do you know why I have called you here while you should be sleeping off the Conclave?” he asked finally, his hand clenched around the hilt of the blade. 

                “No sir,” I responded.  “I do not know what it is that you want with me.”

                “I am curious about you Gittoran.  Your efforts at the last raid, your budding powers…. It makes me wonder what your ultimate abilities will become.  If your thieving ability was luck or skill.  I will test you today in this ability, while your mind is numb from fatigue and your senses dull.  There is something you must retrieve for me.”

                “Anything Captain,” I said.  “What is it and where can I find it?”

                “There is a pirate captain by the name of Vinyé that lives to the north of here, across the field and beyond the compound that housed last night’s conclave.  Among his men is one who wronged something of mine last night, a scrawny blonde by the name of Tithe.” Mají-jalio scowled out the window, his knuckles white where he held his sword.  “I should kill him, but it would set a poor example for the others.  He must have some sort of drug stash near his bunk, a bag of mint leaves or strange chocolates.  I want you to retrieve them for me.”