Halgerd Longlegs, Her Wares and Rumors

Close friends of Durham may recall certain snatches of conversation in which he wondered what happened to Halgerd Longlegs, and hoping for her safe return. Few among his barbarian friends are regulars at the Kantor Kabljauhof, and so they probably would not have heard her name when it was mentioned now and then in the Gatehouse pub--but now, as her cog sails into the harbor of Cothon from a jaunt west to the markets of Nous, her name is sounded in taverns around the city.

A part of the log; the hexes were the planned course, the x's the actual course, and records of wind direction, strength, and the decisions of the pilot in navigation

Taller than many men (hence her cognomen), with straight brown hair and long hands to match her height, the captain-owner of the Seeadler is difficult to miss in a crowd. Considered beautiful for a Hansefrau--not too fair, eyes dark and honest--she cuts a fine figure as she strides through the souk making sales or purchases. But her height is rumored to have intimidated away many would-be suitors.

Well, the Seeadler has returned to Cothon's port, and with it Halgerd has come seeking Durham to pay out his share of the money made by her venture. Word is, he invested 1000 dinars to help her buy a cargo destined for Nous, and now she returns to him 1850 dinars as his share from the profits! Not a bad return for such a short jaunt, not bad at all.

She sailed up to Nous, north past Ittiyqa, and then west along the coast to Nous, and then further west to Al Ragma in Nous' hinterlands. Her return was directly from Al Ragma to Cothon, but the recent bad weather delayed her ship in the Roads for a time before the winds came around and allowed her to sail into the harbor itself. Fortunately, that time allowed her to make the contacts she needed among the merchants in the harbor to make a good deal of money in the meantime, and now Durham has reaped his portion of the benefits.

But she has her own wares to sell, stored in her personal "liberty chests" on the Seeadler, to make a little on the side for herself. Her personal wares are thus described below:

[please comment on the blog or announce in "the taverns" of our server if you purchase anything from Halgerd, both for the Scribes' records, and for others to know what remains available]

Price	Item
15 gp ea.	7 vials of garum al fakr
5 gp/lb	14 pounds of reefstalk chitin
100 gp/oz	7 ounces of dreugh wax
1 gp/day	63 man-days worth of preserved biltong; nutritious and delicious!
1 gp/lb	12 pounds of Nousite salts from the salt flats of the desert
400 gp ea.	2 dreugh shells (a kind of chitin useful for armors)
10 gp ea.	3 atrox ivory fangs
50 gp ea.	3 scrimshawed atrox ivory daggers (ceremonial)
100 gp ea.	5 decorative stoles with traditional Nousite artwork
800 gp	a chlamis-cloak of traditional Nousite design
1200 gp	a  xyphos-type sword, blade etched as an elongated bathorn-terror-bird
500 gp	a hunting yeki (6 legged "giant weasel")
750 gp	a hunting-calot (10 legged "hound")
4000 gp	Faas al Sabag, a two-handed battleaxe of smokey obsidian, purportedly magical

Rumors (lots of politics below for those who are uninterested)

Having returned from Nous, Halgerd and her crew carry word of the goings-on in that western city.

One of the larger partner-cities in the League of Ten Cities, Nous is sometimes called the Souk of Arguments (Souk al Gidaal) because it is a center of intellectual and philosophical pursuits. Many natural philosophers teach there, and the great Library of Thymis holds innumerable and ancient works. Nous is also rumored to be the main seat of the secretive Druser cult, who are said by some to have strange and awesome mental powers.

Halgerd tells that Nous is currently in the midst of intense political activity, as the term of its current Souffet is about to end, coinciding with this month's end of the current lunar year. As such, two parties are engaged in a political fight to get their man elected into office--one party is upset with the general lackadaisical appearance of the the Souffets of Cothon-Gadeed in their approach to the Hanse's campaign against the Luwian pirates; the other supports non-action, preferring to keep out of the war, claiming that joining with the Hanse against the pirates would surely increase the duties paid by the cities to the treasury of the League--the treasury controlled by Gadeed.

The man of the "war-kynis" is Sikandar; the man of the "isolationists" is Nairan; and whichever of the two is elected as Souffet will certainly have quite an effect on the politics here in Cothon-Gadeed, because as noted above, Nous is among the larger cities of the League, and their Souffet traditionally has the ear of the magistrates of Gadeed.

Indeed, Halgerd tells that the Nousi claim that if Sikander is elected, that he will demand that Fadhlan and Khusra al Arasqiy (the Souffets of Cothon-Gadeed) be held to account for corruption and inaction at the end of their terms of office (at the end of the next lunar year).

The Seeadler also put in at Ittiyqa, about halfway between Cothon and Nous; a little closer to home, the Wazir of Ittiyqa usually follows pretty closely to the policy of the Souffets of Cothon-Gadeed; but Halgerd and her crew note that even there, people are upset that the Ten Cities aren't helping the Hanse in putting down the threat of the Luwians.

The pirates have plied the waters for so long, preying on unwary merchants--why shouldn't the Ten Cities help clear the waters? It would open easier trade to Misr in the east, and the lands beyond. And with the Hanse's recent successes [more on that soon, ~the Scribes], why should they get all the spoils of war, while the Decapolis is left out of the prizes of Luwian galleys and the mass sales of piratical prisoners to slavers?

Though these are only two of the other eight cities of the League beyond Cothon and Gadeed, nevertheless it seems to Halgerd, at least, that there is a great deal of unrest in the rest of the Decapolis, driven largely by Fadhlan's and Khusra's apparent inaction. What these politics may mean for the like of barbarians dwelling in Cothon is uncertain, of course ...