Naila Introduction: A Murder Most Foul

Naila the Pecheneg was between jobs at the moment. Having completed a caravan escort the prior afternoon, Naila was already looking for her next gig. A freelance mercenary scout by trade, Naila preferred to work in the countryside, but she wasn't afraid to do other jobs that needed hired muscle when a scouting gig wasn't forthcoming. Most of the decent paying work Naila found was in the cities. Consequently, although Naila considered herself a country girl, the capital city of Assyria had largely become home base for her as most of her contacts and a lot of her frequent employers dwelled or regularly visited the city.

The morning saw her visiting one of those contacts, Minette the Money-Changer, whom Naila had found to be a great source for job leads along with being a reliable and fair changer of money, which was a service that Naila needed regularly due to her diverse clientele.

“Naila! It has been awhile!” Minette exclaimed.
“Has life on the road been profitable?”

“Oh, it was profitable enough. Honestly though, it was just kinda too simple for my liking. A few largely uneventful caravan jobs, a message delivery, and I got to be a bodyguard for a lordling on his first hunting trip. Easy, easy, easy. The one time I saw some brigands on the road, I thought things might get exciting, but a single warning shot sent them scrambling for the hills, where they did not bother us at all,” Naila groused.

“In your line of business, excitement can be fatal,” Minette pointed out. “I would count my blessings if I were you.”

“But what is the point of living if life is going to be soooo boring…”

Minette gave Naila a look but wisely changed the subject. “So what do you have for me?”

“Here are a bunch of Bulgarian coins that I got from the lordling’s father that I did that protection mission for and from one of the caravaners that I escorted,” Naila replied, depositing said coins onto Minette’s counter.

“I see you have a number of Roman coins mixed in here as well,” Minette mused. “Have you ever been to New Rome?”

“I visited Constantinople once last year. Biggest damn walls, monuments, temples, and palaces I’d ever seen, but the people there had a superiority complex almost as bad as the Franks*…”

“I resent that,” Minette interjected.

“I’m joking,” Naila smiled. “But seriously, the Constanipolitans were a lot less tolerant than most Assyrian's I’ve met. It was a cool place to visit, but I’d hate to live there.”

“We may not be too far from that intolerance here I’m afraid,” Minette stated. “A storm is brewing…”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you see all the commotion nearby?”

“Yeah, I saw some guards and a small crowd of people near the canal, but I didn't think it was my business.” Naila answered. She didn't care much for crowds but she could endure them if she had to. “What of it?”

“I haven’t had a chance to check it out personally, but I suspect it’s another murder, probably of one of my fellow Christians,” Minette explained. “This has been happening for months, and to my knowledge, no killer has been identified. Tell you what, I’ll give you a dozen pence to look into the incident for me, since I can’t leave my shop and I’m sure I will get curious customers.”

“Eh, sure, why not,” Naila replied, collecting the Assyrian coins Minette had exchanged for Naila’s foreign coins. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“And if there happens to be a bounty on the killer, perhaps you could bring the bastard to justice if you don’t find other lucrative work,” Minette noted.

“I don’t have much experience with bounty hunting, but I’m not opposed to broadening my skills,” Naila shot back as she left the store.

The streets of the Foreign Quarter of the Assyrian capital were rather cramped and dirty. As a non-native of Assyria, Naila spent a fair bit of time in the Foreign Quarter, although thankfully she had made contacts with enough of Assyria’s aristocracy and commercial elites that her presence was tolerated in the nicer parts of the city. She backtracked quickly to where she had spotted the crowd earlier and found that the crowd had only grown since she’d passed by earlier. While Naila hated crowds, she hated being patient even more, so after taking a breath of relatively fresh air, she began pushing her way through the mass of people and consequently becoming subjected to their objections in many languages and accents. After a harrowing minute of this, she found herself at the picket line being held by the city guards.

“I come on behalf of Lord Menelik!” Naila shouted, getting one of the guards' attention. After repeating herself, she was ushered through the picket to the Captain of the Guard, a royal knight by the name of Sir Vytas. “So you are working for Lord Menelik now, Pecheneg?” the broad shouldered, grizzled garrison commander noted.

“Correct,” Naila lied. She had done work for Lord Menelik, a fairly high ranking Assyrian nobleman earlier in the year, so she was counting on her claim not coming under too much suspicion. “Sir Vytas, I’m surprised to see you here at whatever this is. What exactly happened here anyway?”

“Another murder victim was found this morning in the canal by some street urchins,” Sir Vytas growled. “Good to see that the nobles are finally starting to notice what’s happening in their backyard.”

“Yes, so, do we know who the victim is?” Naila asked.

“We suspect the victim is Marco of Ravenna, a prominent merchant here in the Foreign Quarter,” the guard commander replied.

“Suspect?”

“The victim’s body is quite mutilated and is undergoing decomposition,” Sir Vytas gestured toward the nearby bank of the canal. “See for yourself if you’d like.”

Despite her better judgement, Naila took a heavy glance in the indicated direction and was revolted by what she saw. Yes, Naila had killed people before and was not a stranger to dead bodies. That didn’t mean she was used to the kind of butchery laid out before her.

“Ugh… Oh my,” she gagged.

“As I said,” Sir Vytas continued, noticeably averting his gaze from the mutilated corpse, “it is difficult to verify the identity of the victim visually, however, a business associate of Marco’s who reported him missing yesterday evening has viewed the body and identified it as such. Once we deliver the body to the morgue, other friends and associates will review the corpse and hopefully confirm our suspicion.”

“I see, and what do we know of Marco of Ravenna?” Naila inquired.

“He was a local merchant who had a monopoly on the European fruit trade thanks to deals with the riverboat captains. He had a lot of money and just as many enemies. The associate reports that he had a wife and family in Italy, but that he nonetheless visited the local brothels when he wasn’t making a deal or attending Mass, or whatever the Christians call their worship.”

“Do you think one of those enemies is the culprit?”

“Perhaps,” Sir Vytas grunted.

“That does seem rather excessive for somebody just looking to take him out though,” Naila remarked.

“Exactly. Additionally, several of the other Christian murder victims that have been found lately have been found in a similarly mutilated state.”

“So… serial killer?”

“I believe so, although one of Marco’s enemies may have hired the killer,” the Guard Captain postulated.

“Lovely, so, is there any kind of a bounty on this serial killer?” Naila asked.

“The Guard can only budget 500 shillings for the bounty on the suspected serial killer, however, if you could get Lord Menelik to contribute to the bounty, we could perhaps get the help we need to solve this thing…”

“Good thinking, I’ll ask him,” Naila smiled, seeing an opportunity for a payday.

“Excellent, Pecheneg. Let Lord Menelik know that the Guard is doing all we can for the safety of the city’s citizens and that any additional resources that can be spared will be of great use to that mission."

“Will do, Sir Vytas.” Naila started to return to the picket, then paused, turned around, and stated, “Oh, and I will plan on visiting you later to see if you have learned anything more about the victim and any connections he might have with the other victims. Will I be able to find you in the barracks?”

“Yes, Pecheneg, you should be able to find me at my office in the barracks if I am not otherwise occupied.”

With that knowledge, Naila returned to the crowd and made her way back to Minnette to collect the 12 pence the Money-Changer owed her. After that, she would stop by Lord Menelik's apartment in the High Town and see what she could get the nobleman to chip into the bounty pot. And after that, of course, Naila would have a killer to catch.

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