Maha had decided to write a letter to Ali. She was quite certain it would go like this:

Ali, where the hell are you? I am very pissed! I have been waiting for four years now, you scheming little bastard!

That may have been her general irritation leaking out, though. Maha was not the kind of person to swear, and she wasn’t even sure she knew how to spell most of those words in Scalian. And she would have to send it Scalian, if only to fuddle Ali.

Maybe she had been around too many vagrants, if this is where her thoughts were taking her.

Maha tugged on her hijaab, which was beginning to slide back. She should, by all means, pin it a little tighter when she put in on in the mornings, but she just never did. In this heat, there had been a few times when she almost went without it. The humidity would kill her with or without the scarf, but at least if she was without it, she could feel the breeze on her skin.

Her mind wandered again. Even if she thought writing to Ali would help him come faster, where would she get the paper? She had more money then ever now that she did not worry so much about rent, but where could she buy paper and ink? The town was not that big, nor was it that inexpensive, especially for her. And a messenger, she would have to find someone to carry the letter all the way to Damask. Maha was too embroiled in her thoughts to notice she bumped into someone, and simply continued to walk on, deep in her own world.

Brian had used that night for thievery. He still did, sometimes, on principle, and didn't allow Elena to bring him too much. Besides, if she did, Conn and Elsie would quickly grow suspicious.

Brian hated keeping secrets; hated dishonesty at all. But if Conn found out--

He just didn't trust his brother. It was that simple. And it wasn't at all; he worried Conn would take their arrangement for what he'd feared himself--that Brian was the lady's whore. Or that he was betraying his principles; or... or. As for Elsie, his reasons for not letting her know of the arrangement he shared with the fiefdom were simpler; he felt shame and discomfort at the thought that she, with feminine intuition, might read into it what might very well be there.

Absorbed in thoughts and the clink of coin stolen from a jeweler's stall (jewelers got their metal off the labor of serfs, he reasoned) in his pocket, Brian hardly noticed when Mistress Maha bumped him, but quickly turned around when he saw who it was. He owed her, after all. Brian didn't like to go owing. It smacked of being beholden to someone.

"Mistress!" He flung out a hand, but stopped before actually touching her.

A messenger who could make it all the way to Damask… but what if Ali wasn’t in Damask? It would be impossible to find a way to send it to him then. Maybe if she was still in Damask, he could be found, but then wouldn’t be necessary to find him.

She heard someone call, but there was no name to it. Maha turned automatically. Most people who were looking for her didn’t quite know her name

“You.” She remarked mildly, once she recognized him. The boy whose name she never bothered to remember. “Your hand, it is not troubling you?” It had been some time since she had last examined it, since she had declared it as healed as it would ever be. Had something else happened?

"No--no." Brian shook his head, then dug down into his pocket, extracting a handful of pennies, maybe fifteen of them. "I owe you. For the hand. I might've died, and you didn't have to, and it isn't fair to deprive someone of pay just because they did a charitable act. Come on."

He didn't want to touch her; he recalled how she'd responded to that last time. Besides, he had too much on his mind for a juvenile display of rule-breaking. He was still angry, but no longer angry at everything. His rage had sharpened itself to a fine, cutting point. He could be kind, and not playfully so, precisely because he was so enraged.

"I know you don't think much of me. But I do keep promises." He noticed, a little distantly, that his way of speaking had changed in the past weeks, since he had begun to read fluently. Elena would be pleased; he didn't say 'ain't' much anymore.

Maha raised an eyebrow, than shook her head. She didn’t know whose pockets the money came from, but she was rather sure she knew how they got into the boy’s hands. “Payment is no matter, what is done is done. Charity is not what I performed, I only did what I was able to.” If she saved her life, it was what she could do. Maybe, Allah would look on her favorably for that, even though she had not prayed or observed any holidays in nearly ten years.

It would be ten years in the fall, which was rapidly approaching. Ten years since she had seen her family, ten years since she had seen the sands of home. How much longer would see have to wait? She really should try to find a way to write a letter to Ali.

“I did not doubt your promise, but there is no need to keep it. I am certain that money, which I am sure was hard earned, will be used for better things, yes?” Maha appreciated every coin she could get her hands on, but she wasn’t about to take money that was potentially stolen.

"No--" Brian shook his head. It wasn't a matter of fairness anymore. Now it was a matter of pride. If she saw him as someone in need of charity... he hated that. It was why he didn't let Elena bring him food any longer. Anything was better than gifts. Stealing was better. The loss of his fingers had been worth it. Anything. Anything at all.

"Take it." He grabbed her hand between the two fingers of his own left hand and dropped the coins into her palm. "Sure and I didn't earn it, if earnin's what you can call--can call--it's more thievery what Tiernay and Lawley do, I'll tell you that. What the merchants do. What the landowners damned well do. What I do ain't thievery, it's taking what's due me. I didn't ask t'be tied to the land and not own naught, not even my own body. Take the damned money, and your false scruples, as for them..."

He turned away, shaking his head. "Look, you helped me and I thank you, but money's money. I can't pay you in blood, which is the commerce of us serfs, so I'm sorry."

He realized he could feel the fingers he didn't have clenching and unclenching, and looked away for a moment, trying to calm himself. "I'm sorry, but you don't understand."

Maha rolled her eyes. His petulance and impudence didn’t seem to have changed. “I am not certain you understand, do not think my actions were charity. Even if being a healer was not my choice, it is my duty to tend to the injured. You are not an invalid, my charity is not due to you.”

When he shoved the coins into her hands, it was all Maha could to not throw them back at him. She gripped the coins tightly, feeling them press into her skin. “Perhaps, I do not understand. I am not one of your serfs—I would be considered nobility Arabia.” Or close enough. Titles were different in Arabia, but her father had been greatly admired as a scholar. She would have been married to someone of good rank. At least she would have, if the emir hadn’t been overthrown. When Maha came back after her quick reverie, she found that her hand was empty, and that the coins lay at the boys feet. She blinked. That hadn’t been her intention…

“Paper!” She said quickly, trying to hide her loss of control. “Find me paper, and pen. That will be payment.”