“We shop.” Prin took the lead. She stepped up to a woman at a stall who fried small strips of spiced meat on a tiny stove. By habit, Prin checked the fire and found it wanting. The small fire put too much heat in one place on the pan, but she said nothing. Instead, she asked for two strips of meat for each of them.
As the cheerful woman handed the meat to her, Prin said, “My father needs some carpentry work done. He needs roofing and a whole room built. Do you know anyone?”
“I don’t do that, but there is a man one aisle over who sells tools and he might.”
They found the correct stall after only getting lost once. A man of perhaps thirty greeted them. “I am Eldemire, but my friends call me El. I understand that you might need roofing and other construction work?”
So, the woman who sold them the spicy meat had already sent word ahead of their interest, probably in return for a small commission. Instead of getting angry, Prin admired the action and took a small step back, allowing Sara to open the negotiations.
El was tall, muscular, and his hair flowed from front to back in dark waves. Prin watched Sara watch him. She seemed as fascinated by El as he was for her. Prin turned her attention to El, finding his thick features, suntanned skin, and white teeth too perfect. He was the sort of man that demanded women pay him attention.
Prin nudged Sara. She finally took the cue. She introduced them and said, “Our father has purchased an empty warehouse near the big steeple over there,” she pointed.
He nodded, “I know that neighborhood, of course, and generally where the warehouse is.”
She continued, “The inside had a fire, years ago, and burned the inside, but we want a set of rooms to live there. Father is a spice merchant and will often be traveling, but wants to be where he can quickly look to see his inventory and make trades.”
El said, “I assume it’s one of those long, narrow warehouses they favor near the steeple. What were your thoughts?”
Sara crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes for a brief time, probably picturing her idea. She glanced at Prin, silently giving her permission to express her views, especially since she was paying for it.
When Prin didn’t respond, Sara said, “We talked about a loft, a raised area with two sleeping rooms, a kitchen, gathering room, and a way to heat it in winter.”
Prin said, “Windows. Can we add them? Ones that open?”
“What else?” El asked.
Sara looked to Prin who shrugged as if she had covered it all.
El smiled as he reached behind himself and pulled a rolled scroll from among others on a shelf. He motioned for them to sit at a small table, where two small chairs waited. He unrolled and spread the scroll, which was comprised of a simple line drawing without color or enhancement.
He pointed with a bony finger, “This is to explain the process. We can provide details if this is the sort of thing you wish. May I offer refreshments?”
They refused, and he continued. The first panel of the drawing simply detailed vertical beams that formed a framework holding up a loft. The second panel, the underside of a floor as seen from the underside as well as the top. The bottom four panels detailed how the room might be laid out. “Questions?”
Sara said, “This can be adapted to any size? The stairs placed where we want them?”
He nodded agreeably before saying, “The cost varies, but yes.”
“And building work tables for sorting the spices, as well as shelves on the ground floor?”
“Simple and inexpensive. The loft is also not too costly, but the roof? That is another matter. Until I see the building and in particular the roof, I cannot even give you a guess for the cost.”
Prin liked his honesty. A wrong guess was far worse than being given a higher, but accurate price to begin with.
Sara told him which building was theirs and agreed to meet him in the morning. She shook his hand, and Prin noticed the handshake may have taken slightly too long for a casual agreement. The look in their eyes lingered.
Prin took Sara by her elbow and escorted her from the tent. Outside in the noise of a thousand deals being made, she said, “We still have things to do.”
Sara said, “Are you sure you have enough gold for all this?”
Prin paid for two mugs of unfermented fruit juice from a fruit she was unfamiliar with and stood to the side of the narrow passage between stalls as they sipped. “I have spent less than half of one large coin. If the repairs cost the other half, we still have the other coin to live on. Plus, we have all the smaller gold coins, but our only expenses will be food and what other necessities do we need.”
“That’s enough to pay our way for two or three years?”
“Fifty,” Prin snorted. “After the building is done.”
Returning the empty mugs to the seller, they wandered up and down the rows of goods displayed. Carpets, clothing, weapons, jewelry, food, and a hundred other things. Prin noted the location of a leather worker in case the scabbard for Sara’s new throwing knife was not up to her standards.
As they walked and talked, a raven landed on a tent and cocked its head as if looked at them. It pulled its head back and spoke, “Hannah beware.”
In the noise and confusion of the bazaar, Prin turned to Sara, “Did you hear that?”
Sara looked confused.
The bird flew away. “A raven landed and said, Hannah Beware. At least I think it did.”
Sara turned to look for the bird, and when she didn’t see it, she asked, “Are you sure?”
“No. I was so shocked it called me Hannah, or thought it did, that I’m not sure it was even there. Nobody here knows that’s my name.”
“Then, how could a raven know it?”
Prin shrugged it off, but the incident haunted the back recesses of her mind. Had it happened? She decided her mind was playing tricks.
Sara pulled her to one stall where an old woman with wistful eyes sat and watched the people flowing past. The raised table in front of her held stacks of paper, inks, quills, and even pens. The variety captured Prin’s attention.
Sara said, “We desire paper, poor quality for a student, and all else a teacher might need.”
The woman pulled out a small scroll which revealed the alphabet and numbers, each with small arrows indicating the flow of ink. Before she could fully describe it, Sara agreed to buy. Prin carried a stack of heavy paper while Sara carried a half dozen pens of different shapes and features, and small jars of ink.
A cripple handed them samples of bread with small seeds baked on the outside. They bought two loaves. Another woman sold dried meat, peppered and spiced differently. She was kind enough to refuse to sell them their first selection because she said it would burn their tongues to cinders and then neither girl could ever speak again. All three laughed at the joke.
Others welcomed them or asked friendly questions about their origin. They provided non-descript answers and indicated they had arrived more than twenty days before. They wanted to establish they had made a pilgrimage to visit a relative, more than two weeks before Hannah in the Kingdom of Wren, had disappeared. They also mentioned their father often, as well as Prin’s age, all to confuse those they believed would be searching for them.
When the assassins came sniffing around, they would find no matching blonde girl of eleven had arrived in Indore, and the one that vaguely fit the description had arrived with her family on a ship twenty days before Hannah could have. Instead of hiding, they spread the story to all they spoke to and hoped it helped hide them in plain sight.
Although their arms were already full, Sara pulled Prin to another stall where chamber pots were displayed. Prin said, “I guess we need one.”