The Borderlands The Memoirs Of Lord Tristan

Chapter IV

I mounted my horse and left before Eva or Cassim could wish me farewell. My saddle bags were full of provisions for the trip. It would take me about six days if I took a direct route, and that's what I planned on doing. It was hot, but luckily it was only a dry heat. The horse I had been given was very energetic and possessed endurance. I calculated that if my horse, Swiftfoot, kept up its consistent speed I would be able to make it to Ardine in four days.
Each day I rode until it was dark, than I would set up camp and sleep until dawn. Every day I ate the same simple diet for breakfast lunch and dinner, an egg, dried, salted beef, bread and something fresh, for example; a bunch of dates or olives, which were often unavailable due to the fact that it was late spring.

I exited the Hinterlands and enter the area referred to as the Enveloping Lands, which was a populated land directly outside the city wall, often riddled with cities and a lot of farmland. So when I got to the Enveloping Lands I began to enquire about a young woman name Aaliyah or Selina.
On the third town I entered and asked about her, an elderly man answered.
"You are looking for a young lady named Selina? My son has a large farm near the village of Manoba, he said he hired a young bedraggled woman by the name of Selina, about a week back," said the old man.
"Thank you!" I said giving him a quarter of a shekel.

With this news I pushed Swiftfoot to the limit. Within five hours I had reached the small village of Manoba. Enquiring after the man's name I soon found him, he was older than I, but still block headed.
"Excuse me, I hear you have employed a young girl named Selina," I said, politely, trying to quiet my excitement.
"Don't know where you heard that young man, but you're right," he said, in a most unrefined accent.
"May I see her?" I asked.
"You can buy her if you want to," he said with a sardonic laugh.
"Buy? I thought you said you employed her," I said, icily.
"In a way of speaking," he replied.
"Fine, I will buy her," I replied, my chest tightening up inside.
I hate the idea of slavery, but the Cascatan economy would crash if it weren't for them. And any neighbouring country would jump on an opportunity like that. He led me through several fields full of workers, most of them rough and sun tanned. The thought of Aaliyah being in this place made my heart ache. The whole walk I was preparing myself, I knew Aaliyah would look like Gena, but I had to make sure that I knew, in my heart, that Aaliyah's personality would be different from Gena's. And that, despite all the evidence, Aaliyah was not Gena.
Suddenly he stopped, I followed suit.
"There she is," said the man, pointing into the distance. We were at least one hundred feet away, but I didn't need to get any closer. All thoughts of Aaliyah potentially not being the lost princess fled from my mind. She looked exactly like my sweet Gena. I had to repeatedly tell myself it wasn't Gena. I knew it in my mind, but the resemblance was too similar. My throat tightened, and it took a minute to empty my mind of all emotion.
"I'll buy her," I finally said.
"I would like forty shekels," he said.
"Ten," I said.
"Thirty," he bargained.
"Fifteen."
"Twenty-five."
"Fifteen," I replied holding my ground.
"Twenty-five," he said firmly.
"You know, I know some people who are looking for this woman, and they wouldn't care an olive pit if they killed you to get her," I said, threateningly.

Long story short, I got her for free.