Putting your new information to use

"I promised them that no one would know I had been there," you say to Valerie upon your return, as you lie in bed together waiting for the seven o'clock bell. "So, I'm afraid you are the only one with whom I may speak of what took place. But first, how fares Sir Benedicht?"

"He complains of a headache, but he is well," Valerie says with a smile.

"I will have to make this up to him somehow. In any event, there were more questions I would like to have asked Adhara, but there was no time. Perhaps she could have given me more information about this unknown woman."

"We can assume she was not one of Subhi's party," Valerie suggests. "It is unlikely that she could command Abdul as she did, if she were."

"It is strange that she could command him at all," you counter. "And yet, she did so, and I wonder what power she could have held over him. But I concur, she was not one of Subhi's people. All the women, save the harem, were at the feast - and they do not usually go without a male companion of their own household."

"But, could she have been the murderer?" Valerie asks. "If Adhara speaks true, she is a woman short of stature, not likely to use such a large club and even less likely to be able to swing it hard enough to crack it in twain! You are a strong man, my love, but I do not think even you could thus split a solid oak club of the sort you describe."

"If she could command Abdul as she did, she could also command another," you suggest. "Someone of the necessary size and strength."

"Then we are back where we started," Valerie says. "It is known that Lady Trina commands men; she has the authority, and there are those in the City Watch who are very strong indeed. The only witness who may clear her name is one who cannot speak of what she saw!"

"Perhaps that can be changed," you say. "When I was with Subhi's women, I offered all of them citizenship in Elyssia, if they would but make themselves known upon my next visit to his tent. If Adhara has the courage to venture out at night against her lord's command, then perhaps she will also have the courage to claim her freedom. It is not much to go on, but it is something."

"To you, my love, I know that the good word of a woman is equal to that of a man," Valerie says. "But the Sultan will not see it the same. It is even a part of their religious beliefs that the word of three women is required to deny a man's testimony. Adhara's claim by itself will not be enough, and the others did not see what she saw."

"As you say, it is enough for me," you tell her as the seven o'clock bell rings under your words. "I know what I know, and I will proceed based on that knowledge. I can give Mshindi this information as well, without revealing its source."