[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

**** Harad/Umbar - Gramil ****

Gramil's long stride carried him quickly around the mud puddles as blue as the sky. Still thin and lanky despite his years, he slid between burly shipbuilders with armloads of planks slung over their shoulders; they turned without a glance. Onlookers and the foolish had to duck or be decapitated. No one was supposed to be at the wainwrights who didn't have a job to do, and those there had best know their job enough to stay out of their way.

Gramil squinted up at the first sign of blue skies they'd had for well-nigh a week. He felt like he'd crawled out from under a rock, and his heart lifted at the sight of seagulls. They hovered and danced in the fresh breeze and seemed to love the break in the winter storms as much as anyone. Al-Gareth followed Gramil at a slightly slower pace, the deckhands and dock crowd parting slightly for someone who was obviously a soldier, despite his odd foreign gear. Al-Gareth stuck out wherever you put him, Gramil thought. It was good they were leaving, soon.

They had kept Al-Gareth cooped up in King's Inn for the duration of their stay, but still Al-Gareth had managed to draw attention to himself. The cook's assistant carried a blade now, a gift from Al-Gareth, who'd explained to the gaping young man that it was the custom of his land to give steel to one's trusted liegemen. The assistant now ran errands for Al-Gareth in his free time. He had proven to be a fountain of information. Free information, Jarl had pointed out happily. Another who followed the man like a puppy was the son of a local lordling, a frequent visitor to the tavern at the King's Inn. Gramil had no idea what started that, something about a brawl, but he had visited several times now, and brought his friends. They strutted like rooters in the yard, barely more than boys, eager for trouble. If Gramil hadn't put a stop to it the man who would be king of Nurn, supposedly fleeing in secrecy, would be flanked by an honor guard. The man was a menace. It was clear why his enemies wanted him dead.

If Gramil had not figured early in their travels that Al-Hafez was the more patient of these two from Nurn, he certainly knew it now, though Al-Gareth kept his temper tightly under wraps. But he was young yet, Gramil guessed, no older than thirty-two at most. He could learn. Would he make a good king? It was hard to say. There are those who seem right by the sheer force of their conviction, but that did not make it so. Urkan would know. Gramil was happy to leave the fate of Nurn in Urkan's capable hands. He could save a few slaves, perhaps, but he was not up to setting a king on his throne, for all that Al-Gareth had spoken to him passionately of Nurn and stirred Gramil's old sense of responsibility. Gramil turned and saw Al-Gareth speaking with one of the deckhands. He clapped the man on the back, and followed Gramil to his perch on the upper docks.

"Our ship is ready I understand," he smiled and motioned with his chin at King Fuinur's ship. "We leave tomorrow?"

"Yes," Gramil noted cautiously, "It is not my business, but.. I worry that you have not been overly secret. There are too many who know you, even if they don't know exactly who you are." Al-Gareth's Harad was slightly broken, with an odd accent.

"We leave tomorrow, the danger is little. We need friends, not secrets."

Gramil frowned. He was too polite to say so, but thought privately that friends shared enemies as much as secrets.

[ November 04, 2002: Message edited by: Marileangorifurnimaluim ]