Quoted By:
True to your scheme, you loudly mutter about the foolishness of Sardinians, sons of Heracles and arrogant grandchildren of Zeus, making sure that all kinds of Trachians, vagrants, travellers and miscreants hear you well as you ride Surf back to the Trachian Royal Palace. As you reach the low-lying summit of Trachis proper, the morning is in full swing, and crowds of suppliants, traders, and other Hellenes clog the trailways. To your distaste, you realize a huge number of these are filthy merchants of uncertain provenance - men who survive off the thin fragments of wealth that they shave from material transactions, hardly better than rats aboard a barge. Your status and chariot provides you some ability to pierce through the dense clumps of commoners – you ignore the endless hails, cheers and squawks from these lesser creatures as they scramble to safety, dodging the wheels of your extravagantly lacquered chariot.
Locating Faibokranef that same morning is easy enough – he could hardly stand out more, being very tall, thin and dark of skin. Several of your inquiries from the crowdspeople places him in the dingy, dark, and cramped Trachian stables, tending to his own horseflesh. A murmuring crowd of curious Trachian children sit outside and peer at him through the windows – their interest draws them closer, but reasonable caution prevents them from approaching the scorched man of Aegypt within the shadowed structure. As you enter to re-stall your own steeds, you see that the foreigner has a quartet of fine beasts from his home country – three chestnut, one brown. You suspect that they are of fine mortal stock, but cannot be sure of their lineage... Their necks are broad, powerful and arched, but their faces are quite narrow and slightly depressed in the center, a bit like a serving dish - altogether, exotic. You catch a bit of his speech as you return your horses to their stalls:
“ሕጂ ንዓ ኩርዓት ወዲ! ሰላም ኩኑ - ኣብ ቀረባ እዋን ካብዚ ረሳሕ ቤት ማእሰርቲ ሓራ ክትወጹን ኣብ ክልተ ሃገራት ነጻ ክትጎዩን ኢኹም!”
All meaningless syllables to you, but the man’s tone is instantly recognizable – an uncle praising a beloved nephew, perhaps. You gain the man’s attention without too much trouble and approach him – Faibokranef very carefully does not notice your heavy bruising and politely inquires as to your health:
“Ah – ‘Ippomedun – am gled to see yew walk – walking, yes? – walking dis murnin… How iz yer strenth?"
It occurs to you that negotiation with this man might be a bit challenging due to his tenuous grasp of Zeus’ Hellenika, but you decide to make the best of it – he has seemed patient enough with you in the past. Why, hardly a week past, he was your willing acting partner (and theatrical victim) for an endless series of your war tales after your victory in the boar challenge. But what pact to negotiate and how?
>cont
