Alexander made enquiries and found small traders willing to employ outsiders. One, the Midnight Soil found it difficult to employ anyone living. Their dockyards and squat warehouses were filled with mindless undead, constantly hauling cargo day and night. But Hope, with interest in all things magical, had no qualms about entering their territory.

So it was, that Hope took an interview with the Nameless One, the only human in the Midnight Soil’s dockyards. He summoned her into his personal chambers. He was sitting on the floor over a crystal ball, dark tapestries hung around the room. He wore even darker robes wrapped around him.

“You will ask no questions that I do not permit,” he croaked. He was hunched over his crystal ball like an ancient sage, but his hair and beard were dark, and his face was barely middle-aged. Was it an act, or was he ill?

“Why?”

“That is not a question that I permit.”

“What questions do you permit?”

“You will be informed. You only need to know enough to protect our interests here.”

“What interests?”

“That is not a question that I permit.”

Hope rolled her eyes. The whole thing reeked of petty theatre. If he had any real power, he would be raising an army of undead and conquering the city, not unloading cargo. He lacked power or imagination. “You don’t have anyone else willing to work for you.” Hope clenched her fist and light glimmered there. “Do you want to hire me or no?”

He straightened a little and avoided looking at her hand. “We may have some use for you. The Tireless Ones work constantly but lack… imagination.”

Hope pursed her lips. She wondered what would happen if she picked up his crystal ball and dashed it into the ground. Or pulled down the tapestries hanging on the walls. Maybe pull his robe up over his head, see how his mysterious act fared then. “I’m the best dueller in this city, without doubt. I’ll protect your interests.”

“Very good.” He detailed her duties, which were nothing more than patrolling the Midnight Soil’s dock area.

So, she patrolled the edges of her dockyards, eyeing travellers with threatening glares. ‘Look at me, I’m a thug, not a princess,’ she thought at them. She leaned against warehouse walls, daring anybody to make an attempt on their wares. But the city outside went on with the Flower Festival.

She was surprised how much she enjoyed being a mercenary; there was a glorious anonymity in not telling every person she met that she was a princess. She hoped this would protect her from assassins, for a while at least. Patrolling the quiet docks gave her time to plot and think of how she might return home into the sky. The Tireless Ones grim unflagging labour was enough to keep people away.

The undead workers were disgusting but well-preserved by the Nameless One’s magic. They were all bald, with tanned vinegary skin like well-used wine-bottles. They smelled of a pungent incense, the same smell that filled the Nameless One’s chambers. On their jerkins they bore a silver crescent, the sigil of a closed eye, the symbol of the Midnight Soil. She poked some of them occasionally, to see if they would respond, but they never did.

Brunhilde could not face working besides the undead after facing a city of them in the desert. She found a more pleasing placement in the Zaytuni Trading Company (In Service of the Glorious Emperor).

Brunhilde took an interview with the head of the company, Marid in his compound, which was the same wood and slate-roof style as the rest of the city, but the Zaytuni Trading Company had taken great care to cover every surface in designs and plants from their homelands. Intricate calligraphic scrolls hung along the walls and thick green vines carpeted the roof and outer walls. Hanging bowls of delicate plants swung slowly in the wind, along with windchimes. The windchimes were fascinating, thin metal tubes that made shapes as they rotated. Now a bird, long necked and graceful, then after a gust a fish leaping through the air. As she waited in the entry hall, Brunhilde watched them spin but could not see how the magic worked to make them shift so.

The only sign of the flower festival was a carefully made mural of a sunflower on a stand, the same she had seen elsewhere in the city. But it was placed discreetly in a corner, as if ashamed to be here in the Glorious Emperor’s trading company. The building was a palimpsest of Zaytuni culture carefully overwriting the Elovian foundations.

A pair of spear-wielding guards appeared and took her to see Marid. They passed a courtyard of guards practising their drills. She was impressed by their precision and co-ordination. Sitting in a covered area was a boy, barely into his teens. He wore dark green robes, with a heavy bead necklace and rings upon his fingers. A linen scarf was wrapped around his head. Behind him the flag of the Glorious Emperor hung, a white spear on a green background. Besides the flag were spears hung as decoration and a huge beast, stuffed and preserved.

“You may sit.” He indicated a cushion on the floor in front of him.

Brunhilde dropped down onto it. Though he was sitting on a stool, they were at eye-level to each other. He stood and clicked his fingers. A guard placed a fat cushion on the stool. Sitting again, Marid was now a fraction taller.

“Protocol, you understand.” Marid said.

Brunhilde had no idea what he was talking about but didn’t want to appear ignorant of city customs. “Protocol. All the time.”

“Have you heard of the Glorious Emperor?” he asked. He peered carefully at the rings on his fingers.

“Perhaps.”

He frowned. Wrong answer.

“Is he very powerful? Many riches?” she guessed.

“Yes! Very powerful. He has visions of destiny. He foresaw a great destiny for me here, in Elova. So, he sent me here to found this company, to His Glory. How generous, to send away one of his own cousins. I am a cousin of the Glorious Emperor, you see.”

“I see.” Brunhilde thought about her own cousins. They had travelled so far, but none of them had heard of this glorious emperor. “How old are you, Marid?”

He almost fell off his stool. “That question is against protocol.” He glared at her. It reminded her of a kitten trying to be threatening.

She stared back at him, until she realised he expected a response. “Sorry?” she ventured.

“Apology accepted. You are after all, a barbarian.”

“So I am. Do you need me here? Your men are all well-trained enough.”

“I need outside help, somebody not afraid to go against unsettling foes.”

“That I can do. I’ve fought serpents that rained from the sky, men that could break steel on their skin. There is nothing on this earth that I am afraid of fighting.” She cracked her knuckles and stared at the grey beast hanging on the wall. It was the size of a cow, but with rocky grey skin and two jutting horns on its snout. “What is that thing?”

“A rhino. That one trespassed onto the Glorious Emperor’s lands, and I removed it. I was allowed to display it as a trophy.”

“I’m impressed. How did you best it?” She would like to fight one herself, the fact that Marid had bested one roused her respect.

“I directed my men to take it down, without hesitation. The Glorious Emperor recognised my quick thinking.” Marid’s chest puffed out.

Brunhilde’s momentary glimmer of respect for Marid died out like a candle dropped into the sea.

“You say you fought serpents from the sky? How fascinating.” Marid clicked his fingers, and a tray of tea was brought to them.

They sat and drunk tea whilst Brunhilde regaled Marid with tales of her exploits and her homelands. How she got the name Red Sparrow from her family, and how her people collected tales to tell their ancestors in the sky. Marid told her about the court intrigues of his Empire, and the vast well-kept lands that bloomed under the magical protections of the Glorious Emperor.

“How far away is it to your homeland?” Marid asked. His face was reddened, from the tea and the intoxicating presence of this almost giantess that had lived an exceedingly interesting life.

“Leagues. From the west coast, I think a month’s sail north. How long is it from here to the west coast?”

“Forgive me, Brunhilde the Red Sparrow. The Glorious Emperor has no interests that far west. You should ask the sailors that go that way.” He took a sip of tea, always the same way. Hold the cup in the palm of the left hand, lift with the right hand. Take one sip. Place back in the palm of the left hand.

“I will.” She had not been on a proper ship for some time. Maybe it would be good to head west along the inland sea. She downed the dregs of her tea. The aniseed taste made her tongue tingle, but she liked the sweet musky taste of the date wine in it. “Do you have any more use for me today?”

“I have judged you suitable for employment in the Glorious Emperor’s interests. I have a special request for you. I did not sit with you here just to hear your stories, Red Sparrow.” He leaned towards her and said in a low voice. “Though your stories are wonderful.” He straightened and puffed his chest up. This was his habit when giving an important order. He thought it a commanding general’s pose. Brunhilde thought it adorable.

“I have deemed you worthy of my confidence. Your heart is noble, your arms are strong, your eyes are warm, and your skin is smooth and- a warrior’s skin.” He patted his cheeks with his kerchief. “There are plots in this city. Plots within plots.”

“What do you want me to do, Marid?” Brunhilde said.

“We have need of a certain shipment. The Midnight Soil are the only company here who have contacts with the Southern Lords, and they add their own exorbitant surcharges. Tomorrow morning, I would like you to obtain a shipment of salt and spices they will be receiving.”

“You want me to steal it?”

“No, no, no. Think of it as early collection. I will pay them the real value of it, not their malicious asking price. Protocol. The Glorious Emperor is more than capable of paying one hundred times their asking price, but I cannot allow His interests to be whittled away by outrageous trading partners. We take the goods first, then pay them the real value. Initiative. That’s my speciality.” He gestured up to the rhino on the wall. “They have no right asking for so much money, they don’t have any workers to pay, their cargo is hauled by grim undead.” He grimaced. “Disgusting things. You have no qualms about fighting those kinds of things?”

“Fighting them is fine.”

“Good. You will command a squad of spear-men, and take a shipment of salt and spices for us. Cause no large troubles, but do not hesitate to defend yourself.”

In the evening they returned to Alexander’s home to eat supper with them all. The children were tired from weaving and selling all day, they were half asleep as they ate their stew. Brunhilde arm wrestled with Yusuf at his request. Even when he leant his whole body against her grasp, he could not best her. She laughed and relented when Miray joined in to help Yusuf.

“We beat her!” he cried.

“Ah, she let us win,” Miray said. She yawned and rubbed her eyes.

“Time for bed.” Alexander shooed them off to sleep.

Hope and Brunhilde went up to their sleeping rolls and blankets in the small attic room. Downstairs they heard Alexander cleaning up, then putting his children to bed. They could hear fragments of him telling a story to them. It was a safe and warm sound.

“My mother would tell me tales to get me to sleep. The ocean at the end of the world, lightning that could dance, the boar that could not be killed. Tell me a story, Sky Princess.” Brunhilde elbowed Hope.

“My mother would attack my sleeping quarters in the middle of the night, to test my protection spells.” Hope shoved Brunhilde’s elbow away. “Or send starlancers to test my barriers.” She remembered drifting off to sleep to the sound of crackling explosions and electric hums as her wards repelled the attacking magics.

“That’s a terrible story.”

“So it is. Do you think we’ll find Malkor?” Hope yawned.

“I doubt it. If he had any sense, he would have taken that haul far away from us.” Brunhilde stretched and massaged her muscles. “Marid wants me to steal something from your Nameless One.”

“He’s not my Nameless One, he’s a poor necromancer at best.”

“Still, he wants me to take a shipment from you.” Brunhilde scratched her armpits.

“So, I’ll stop you. Or you’ll take it. Either way we get paid, don’t we?” Hope shifted on the roll. She tried to plump it up to make it more comfortable.

“That’s true.” Brunhilde lay out on her back.

“Or you take it, then I take it back. With a nice bonus for retrieving our goods.” She yawned. “I’m a genius. We can make a fortune, playing themselves against each other.”

“That feels wrong. Marid is just a child, really.”

“That makes it easier. You wouldn’t last a second in a royal court. Make your enemies fight each other to expend their resources.”

“Marid isn’t my enemy.”

“Not yet.”

“You have a dark heart sometimes, goldhair.” Brunhilde pulled her blanket around her, she felt a sudden chill in the night air.

“This is fun.” Hope stared at the ceiling. She saw the stars outside in her mind and tracked her city’s path across the sky.

“What’s fun?” Brunhilde mumbled. She was slack-limbed and drifting off into sleep.

“Not being a princess. Sleeping without wards.” It would be the equinox festival soon. Her city would be silent, instead of ale and flowers it would be filled with prayer and meditation. To thank the gods for their protection and to renew the arcane protections. Had her mother sent assassins in fear that Hope would return and interfere with the sacred ceremony? Or just to test her? Perhaps was it another city, ambitious and plotting to remove an enemy princess whilst she was alone? But then again, she wasn’t really alone, she had Brunhilde by her side. She looked at her companion, blissfully sprawled out in the deep sleep she could achieve at a moment’s notice. She was coarse and she was crude, but Hope was beginning to appreciate her warmth.

Brunhilde yawned and farted, both loud enough to wake an ox. Hope cursed and buried her head in her blanket.