17. Seeds (Patreon)

The rest of the feast had been quite enjoyable. Even though Aloe didn’t have the best of relations with Mirah, she couldn’t deny how much of an excellent cook she was. No one in her household actually cooked. Since Aloe could remember, her parents had been always too occupied at work and would usually eat in the court.

Before her father’s death, when the family still overflowed in riches, they had contracted a maid to babysit Aloe, clean the house, and do the meals. After that though, she found herself frequenting more and more Jafar’s house. It wasn’t until a while ago that she had stopped going, deciding to cook for herself.

And whilst she wasn’t exactly a good cook, no one had truly taught her besides those times she observed Mirah cook, Aloe had surpassed her mother in the kitchen.

Why all of this rambling?

Because for the first time in a while, Aloe was cooking for herself again. Shahrazad had gone back to work at the emir’s court with the scribes, leaving her alone. She intended to go back to the greenhouse this same week, but first, she had some errands to do. And other reasons to stay behind for the time being.

Gathering rations and actual food as she intended to stay for a longer period was important, but she would leave it for last as the fresher the food, the better.

The first thing Aloe did was write a letter. She needed to have a word with the bank, especially her ‘mentor’ Farid, but doing so face to face would show desperation. Well, partially. She just didn’t want to have the conversation of why she hadn’t been promoted yet to an actual job and she was leaving for an indeterminate period of time.

She had to show them that they needed her. And the excuse of ‘you are not an adult yet’ would not work. The heavens know that the children, whilst not yearning for the mines, are part of the workforce.

And if the greenhouse truly was a successful venture, well, they would already know why she didn’t bother contacting them back.

Writing letters was tricky, you needed to convey passion in your words, but you couldn’t speak with the heart because that would be interpreted as weakness. It had to be equivalent to a talk but without being present.

Weakness was something tricky to fight around.

“Honestly, I should have asked Mom.” Aloe dropped the feather in the tincture after having finished. “She isn’t a scribe for anything. But that would have prompted questions. I can’t have her reading this.”

Overall, she considered the letter a solid job. Not perfect, but it would do the trick just fine. The thing was delivering it. She couldn’t do it just now, the bank would probably come for her. She had to be out of the city the moment the letter arrived to them. That would put a wall between them. They had to grow desperate and see how useful she really was.

Now, she could only do two things as she waited. And she had very good reasons to wait a few days before leaving for the greenhouse.

One was reading more of Karaim’s cultivation technique, the other was investigating what she could grow in the greenhouse. The banker’s apprentice eyed the seed pots she had obtained from the apothecary.

“Thyme, sage, chamomile, and black seeds. Hmm...” She lay her head on the cool wooden desk, swaying one of the pots from side to side as the seeds inside swayed like sand in the dunes. “None are really expensive, and I kinda can use all of them if I ever get sick in the greenhouse. It would be really easy for me to fall ill, and the closest hospital is a day away. Probably more if I have to do the trek in suboptimal conditions. Hmm... could I get others?”

From what she had seen, most of the greenhouse was occupied with flowers. Flowers that she wouldn’t replant as they were hard to preserve, transport, and overall inexpensive. That left a sizeable parcel for medicinal plants.

“Huh, now that I think about it, most of that dead organic matter was cannabis, wasn’t it?”

Considering she hadn’t found any of the plants, and his grandfather was apparently some kind of drug lord, the only real reason for the lack of cannabis being planted was that it had wilted away and it was too unrecognizable for Aloe’s untrained eye.

“I mean, I wasn’t looking for it, and even if I was, the nince-damned blue tree and the foul smell had all my attention.”

Aloe wiggled her head across the desk until she spotted the only seeds she had kept.

“I could.” She said looking at the pot. “It would be easy money. The thing is, should I?”

Cannabis trafficking, and therefore hashish trafficking, wasn’t outlawed by the government. You could get into some problems regarding manufacturing, taxes, or in which hands ended, but the problem wasn’t the government itself. The problem was the...

“Assassins.” Aloe sighed.

Everyone that lived in Ydaz, or even the whole Qiraji region, knew about the menace that they presented. A collective of lethal murderers that obeyed no one, those are the assassins. Sometimes they accepted coin, but most times when they assassinated important targets, they did it out of their own volition and agenda.

“If I started doing cannabis, especially at the amounts the greenhouse will allow me to, they are going to find me.” She wasn’t naïve. “The assassins have eyes and ears everywhere.” That was a saying that circulated the streets. “Is that truly true though?”

Yes.

Most likely yes.

“If not even the sultan or other nations have been able to stop them, then no one can.” Aloe separated her face from the desk, her skin distorting a bit from the stickiness of the wood, and forcefully lay her back on the chair with her head looking at the ceiling. “The previous Emir of Sadina died because he wronged them, and they made sure to make that clear, do I really want to call the attention of those people? Am I that desperate?”

The answer was simple.

“No to both.” Aloe jumped from the chair with the cannabis jar in her hand. “There are many alternatives, and we aren’t that short of money.”

But deep down she knew that that door would always be open.

“I need some air.”

She forcefully left the pot on the desk, the crash loud enough to make her think she had broken it, but she didn’t hassle herself to check.

As Aloe rushed into the morning sun, she couldn’t avoid but think if she was making a dune out of a pile of sand. Sure, the assassins were highly covetous of drugs, for whatever reason, but they wouldn’t hurt her.

Quite the contrary, in fact.

Whilst they were known to be cold-blooded murderers, they weren’t serial killers. Some even said the assassins were fairer than those ruling the sands. Aloe didn’t have an opinion on that, though she knew that assassin micro-states existed. The only sovereign they tolerated was their own.

“I should just focus on the cultivation technique for now.” The girl walked down the bazaar.

The merchants shouted at the passerby for their attention, wanting to sell their wares and relieve others of their drupnars. The loud cacophony was comforting, it was familiar, and it prevented her from thinking.

“Huh, that reminds me I need something beyond food and seeds.” The colorful canopies of silk and palm leaves filled her vision as she now walked with a destination in mind.

It was peculiar feeling lost because she had too many options. Until now she had lived with the mentality that she would become a banker, but her grandfather had shown her a more... mystical way. And if Jafar and Umar’s words were to be trusted, the banker's path wasn’t as open as she once hoped it was.

Before she could sink into more depressive thoughts, Aloe stopped at a stall. Not any notable products were for sale, but she didn’t want anything special.

“G’day missus, what da ya’ wan?” The vendor was quite old, the beard not quite white yet, but close.

“Not much, I’ve just noticed you are selling farming equipment.”

“Aye,” The old man nodded, “recently had a nasty wound and I can’t go back to the fields.”

“Don’t you have anyone in the family to sell them? What about the fields?”

“Nay, missus. Ma’ daughter works at the university, and ma’ own missus is far worse for the wear than me. The fields even ain’t ma’ own.”

“Huh, quite rare,” Aloe mussitated, she remembered that around Sadina most farmers owned the land they sow. If the man didn’t own it, then it was reclaimed land by the sultan. “Anyways, what do you have here?”

“Anythin’ ya’ can use in the field, missus.” The ex-farmer pointed with open arms at his stall. “Some old bronze tools and such.”

“What about the gloves? They look new.”

“Aye, bought them a few months back. Ya’ can have them for a fajat if ya’ wanna.”

“Deal.” Aloe tossed him a fajat from her coin purse in a swift finger flip. The old man caught it in midair without breaking a sweat.

“Pleasure doin’ business with ya’, missus.” The farmer stated after chewing the thick copper coin.

“I’m not quite done yet, though,” Aloe said as she stashed the hard leather gloves in her bag. “Would you happen to have some seeds?”