Off Center (The Lament) (10 page)

Before
she could say no however, still drugged enough that she wasn't really hungry, even
though she'd eaten, since Mara had said to, Sam gasped.

"She
didn't mean any harm!" He looked ready to run, and the others seemed at about
the same level of panic, except for Hadis, who seemed involved with her own bit
of bread at the moment, and Lyse who seemed like she was just confused. "Please,
she's a good girl. She didn't mean to give insult to you."

Pran
shrugged. "None taken. I mean, I
am
a girl, so why would I? Honest,
I don't go around shooting
everyone
that crosses my path. Don't worry about
it." She winked at Lyse and then smiled at the others, who seemed more worried
rather than less.

Mara
laughed
. It wasn't her real chuckle either, but a fake thing that seemed
practiced.

"Oh,
it's the hair, which is why she didn't mention it to you all, before. It would have
been a grand lark, when she showed up later in a dress, don't you think? There's
a good story behind the haircut too. You should all ask her about it later, when
she's performing. Right now, we should start making the rounds. I hate to rush your
meals, but the light will fade." She stood, and that got the rest of them to
as well, making the whole thing officially over.

She'd
have to ask later about that. The others had been sitting there for nearly half
an hour after the food came. How long did they normally take? Before she got to
the door, Kevin settled back down.

"If
I'm not needed, I'm going to stay here, for a proper meal time. We cut this one
nearly an hour short. Makes me half glad that I'm not with the government, if they
make you hop like this all the time." He smiled about it, which made his light
colored beard twitch a bit.

Mara
turned at the door.

"This
was a luxury for us, sitting so long. Thank you for your hospitality."

Pran
echoed that part, finally remembering her manners.

"Yes,
thank you Lyse, the meal was lovely. Bye Hadis." She waved and the little girl
took a bite of jam and bread, managing to smear a bit of it on her face. She waved
back though, with the crust.

"Bye.
I can come hear you sing?" The tiny face looked around, but no one shouted
no or anything.

"Well,
if it's not too late for you, then yes. Hopefully The Lament, our airship, will
be back by then, so that I have my instruments with me. We camped out last night,
and I didn't want them to get too cold."

That
was good enough for the little girl, who seemed glad enough to hear that small people
weren't forbidden entertainment. Sam however turned and started grilling them about
what camping out meant. At first she thought he might be mad about the use of the
woods, but it wasn't that. He was just horrified that two women would be sleeping
in the cold like that.

She
didn't explain about the lack of any real rest at all. Neither did Mara.

"Ah,
well, we'd said that we'd be here, and couldn't let you down. Shall we?" She
waved her hand forward, but Mildred took the lead, taking them to the butcher's
shop first.

After
a bit she hesitated, having let herself in.

"I
don't rightly know that he has anything that would be against the law, Guardian,
but it's a place to start. The type to do one bad thing might be the kind to do
two. He might have a secret cellar or something like that, don't you think?"
It was said as if that were simply a fact, but Pran couldn't help but notice how
very hard the woman was working to lead them to the Butcher's shop. All the talk
about the meat, and what to do with it, now leading them to a personal home, when
Mara had asked about large energy use situations.

This
place didn't have anything like that, Pran was willing to guess.

Mara
stood for a bit, doing no more than glancing around. It was clear that this wasn't
lost on her as bizarre, she just didn't seem to catch the thread the woman was tossing
out to them. Pran held up her right hand suddenly. It got everyone to stop and turn
toward her.

"What
is it Mildred? Why have you been pushing us towards this place? What is it that
you know, or think you know? Does it have something to do with Lyse and Will, and
why Hadis looks like she could be his child?" It was a horribly rude thing
to accuse anyone of, she knew. She was just too drugged to care, she realized. There
was no fear, which meant that she was free to simply speak. It was kind of refreshing,
even though she didn't often hold her tongue completely.

Sam
looked at the woman, and she froze in place, as if she didn't know what to do at
all.

"I...
don't know what you mean." Except that her words were so clearly a lie that
Mara, who was watching her in a trance, much like the one that Judge Claire used
at her trials, snorted softly.

"That's
a lie. Mildred, share with us. Now."

There
was no speaking for a long time and finally a very worried Sam looked at his wife,
his eyes going dark. If he were younger, Pran would have expected violence. What
they got was a bit of sharp barking from the man.

"What
is it? You told me that he touched her! We told everyone. They almost killed him!
What is this?" If it was some kind of shorthand that old married people knew,
then Pran hadn't heard about it, since what he said to his wife made very little
sense.

When
he stopped, Mildred let her face tighten, like a person expecting a blow, and moved
into another room, gesturing for them all to follow along. It was a plain looking
space really, but the woman moved like she knew it all well, and finally pulled
up a trap door, which had a wooden staircase under it, leading down.

"It's
all in here. I can't bear to look again. You'll need a light."

Mara
pulled her hand light, which was electrical, and wound it for a bit, causing the
thing to glow brightly.

"I'll
check it out. Pran, stay here. If they try anything, shoot them both." There
was a gesture toward the air rifle, before she went down. A few minutes later she
came up, slowly shaking her head. She did not look happy about it at all.

"There's
a cell down there. Two of them, and sexual devices. That's not illegal, but he has
enough
technology
to outfit a small army down there. Weapons and things I
don't recognize too. This isn't just a casual collector. Why didn't you simply tell
us all of this, if you knew?" This was addressed to the old woman, who smoothed
the front of her gray dress, under her tan jacket. It seemed very nervous to Pran.

Of
course, she was holding the air rifle on her, and the woman had to know she was
willing to shoot her. It wouldn't kill, but it would hurt a bit. She looked hard
at the lady.

"Speak.
There are some bigger things going on, and nothing you say here will be used against
you. Not even if you committed a crime or two." She made it sound serious,
but it wasn't. She couldn't make any promises at all, especially ones like that.
The law didn't give two grapes about what some Apprentice Bard said.

But
Mildred didn't know that, did she? She
should
, but if that thought existed
in her little white haired head, it didn't show up right then, when it might have
helped her.

"It
won't? I don't want to go to a camp. It's just that, well, I don't look very good
in all this." She mumbled the words, and Mara stepped back, instead of forward
to take over.

Pran
just kept lying, since no one was telling her not to.

"We
have reason to think that you may be able to help us in a different matter, with
this information. We have discretion in cases like this. As long as you didn't kill
anyone, you didn't, did you?" It was a pacing thing, stopping the flow of words
like that. It would make the performance seem more believable later.

The
woman went wide eyed.

"No!
Nothing like
that
. It was just... Lyse, she's not right. You saw that. Slow.
Sweet, but she tends to think everyone is her friend. A few weeks ago she let slip
to me that Will was providing more to her than just pork sausage. She was concerned,
because she's with child again, missing her time, and it might be Will's."

Mara
didn't so much as bat an eyelash, as if she'd already known that part.

"So,
you made up the story about Hadis and had her memorize it? But why not simply tell
on the man. It isn't a good thing, and a bit of a scandal, but sleeping with a woman,
even getting her pregnant, isn't normally a thing that would warrant the treatment
that he's... Ah. I see." She looked back at the hole in the floor, leaving
Pran in the dark.

The
old woman nodded, and was far more forthcoming.

"Exactly.
Will said that he'd tell everyone that Lyse was a tramp, if she told anyone, which
wouldn't have mattered much, since she's so gentle and sweet that everyone already
knows she isn't to blame for that kind of thing. David Strong was the father of
her first child, but wouldn't take her as a wife. Good enough to bed, but not wed.
Kevin stepped in for us then. I snuck in here, since Lyse told me about what's under
the house. I had to see it with my own eyes, but he caught me and said that if I
told anyone about the devices he had, he'd call in an army to kill us all. So I
made up the story and got Hadis to go along with it, to protect her mother. She's
a very bright girl, you know." She seemed ready to stop there, but Mara had
her go over it all, at least a dozen times, and finally nodded.

"All
right. We'll handle this. I need you two to keep this quiet however. Just watch,
and see if anyone comes to get the technology. If they do, don't stop them, just
let them go on their way. These people are killers and we don't need anyone getting
hurt. You did a good job getting us here, Mildred." She seemed to mean it.

Pran
nodded along with her and everything, still pretending she was more than just a
place holder for Clark. She did make it sound pretty good however, as if she actually
knew what was going on.

"Right.
So for the moment we need to get out of here without being seen, and make those
rounds, like we intended in the first place. As soon as we can, we'll do the rest
of what's needed. How do we leave without being observed?" She sounded cold,
logical and like it was a real plan, instead of improvisation. Mildred showed them
to the back door, which was well shielded from prying eyes on all sides.

That
made sense however, given that the man had to be able to move prisoners in and out.
Why else have cells? It took another two hours to check the rest of the place, and
they ended just before an airship, looking large and dark against the white fluffy
clouds started to come in for a landing, out at the airfield. As they started to
walk back to their campsite, from the night before, Pran turned.

"Bard
Benjamin and I will be back before seven. Is there a way to warm the meeting space
a bit?" She wasn't hopeful, but Sam tilted his head, then stood a bit straighter,
nodding.

He
seemed happy enough, "you're still coming? That's more than I figured on. Yes,
we can fire up the old woodstove in there, without difficulty. Thank you. Bring
a wagon or sledge, so that you can take your wood back with you!"

As
they trudged out of town, neither of them spoke about anything in particular, but
Mara watched the area like every bush might have an attacker behind it. Pran did
too, after she noticed that. After all, they just might. The one thing had proved
to be different than they thought, which might mean that everything was. The last
time they'd gone into a town with tech-cultists around, it had been being held hostage.
Which meant this one wasn't. She knew that for certain, because she and Mara had
managed to be all over it after they left the Butcher's house. The Guardian would
have seen signs of that, if it was happening. Then, if it were the case, she wouldn't
have mentioned it, would she? Not if they might be being watched.

Pran
tried not to seem too obvious about things, but suddenly stopped, just around the
bend where she'd shot Sam the day before and walked backwards in her own tracks
awkwardly, matching Mara, like she'd been told to, to cover the sound. It wasn't
perfectly done, and her prints looked a lot bigger than they had before, but she
got into the brush off to the side and walked the path from the road to behind a
very big bush a few times. That way it would look like they'd stopped to answer
the call of nature.

Then
she sighed and crawled under the edge of the bush, finding some dry, but very cold
ground under the small evergreen leaves of the thing. They were sharp and poking
things, but pretty, even in the snow. Holly, she thought. It was almost an hour
later that someone came along, and they didn't move out of the town, but toward
it. The man was about Paul's size and general look, and wrapped up in warm looking
clothing, but he didn't limp, so it wasn't the man himself.

He
didn't act shifty or anything, but the clothing was wrong. It wasn't a normal fabric.
People in this part of the world made their own, or bought some from a neighbor.
On occasion they might buy it from a traveling salesman, but this stuff, even from
ten feet away, just looked too nice for that. It was a tight weave, with a slight
sheen to it, done in a drab green. It also had a strange fastener on the front.
She thought. It could have been a decoration after all.