He led her in the opposite direction from the main hall at which Megan looked over her shoulder and frowned quizzically at Baradur. The bodyguard just nodded and gestured down the hall.
She hadn’t realized until this moment what a knife-edge she was riding. In the harem she had, more or less, understood the dangers. But here, in a the castle of a group of unknown, and unknowable, loyalties, she had to wonder just who she could trust. Even after reaching Norau she would have the same problems. Ownership of a Key gave the user a great deal of power, power that was desirable to just about anyone in this post-Fall world. She automatically had told the soldier to precede her but it wasn’t until they were walking that she realized she didn’t want him behind her. She had to wonder how much of that automatic paranoia was from her recent experiences and how much was from her father. And to wonder how much of it was valid. Their reception had been surprisingly friendly and the castle, despite the laird’s own paranoia, seemed secure.
On the other hand, it was easier to follow the young man than to take directions if he was behind her.
They turned down a side corridor and entered another narrow spiral staircase. Baradur grabbed a torch just as they entered the black maw of the doorway so she could partially see where she was going. The stairwell could best be described as “dank” and she wondered at the amount of slime that was on the walls.
“Can I ask a question?” she said as she slipped the second time and bumped into the young man in front of her.
“Yes, of course, mistress.”
“I’ve been in historical castles before; they were never this…”
“Worn?” the man laughed. “Mistress, there are nearly a hundred people packed inside these walls. That many people in an area like this leads to all sorts of nastiness. We’ve had people come down with fungal infections. And there’s nothing we could do, even if we had the time, about stuff like this mold. Cleaning these steps would be a job for bleach. Do you know how to make bleach, mistress?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Megan chuckled, “I do. But I take your point. For that matter, I know some medicinal chemistry. I’m not sure if I should leave.”
“Mistress, if you could help that would be great,” the guard said, his voice curiously muffled. “But you need to get to somewhere decent as fast as possible. This is no place for a council member. You can do us much more good presenting our case to those bastards in Norau that don’t lift a finger to help us. We’ve been fighting Paul’s forces almost since the Fall and the only help we’ve gotten is from the Finn, who just told the New Destiny bastards that they can’t use power.”
He turned as they reached a mostly empty storeroom at the bottom and looked her in the eye.
“I don’t know at what point the Finn will decide that we’re not ‘neutral,’ ” the young man said, shaking his head. “But I don’t really care. When you’ve seen one of your best friends dying from not having a decent doctor it’s hard to care about ‘the big picture.’ We need help, mistress, while there’s anyone left to help.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Megan said. “While I’m here and when I’ve gotten to Norau.”
“Thank you, mistress,” the young man said, gesturing to a door on the far side of the storeroom. “This way.”
“How many people have you lost?” Megan asked as the soldier opened the door.
“I don’t really know,” he admitted. “More guys trickle in from further up the highlands all the time. Right now we’ve got about thirty fighters here at the Clan and Innes has about a hundred. We had about eighty at one point. Some of them got killed, some drifted away. We don’t hold a boy that’s seen the war and decided it’s not for him. He’ll find someplace in the hills and make a farm and send us what he can. But if he hasn’t the stomach to stand the orcs then I don’t want him on my shoulder.”
In the next room there were a few people sleeping, most of them women, girls really, two of them curled up with a young man about the age of the soldier. The others were curled up with each other, huddling under fewer blankets than there were bodies. They tiptoed through lightly, trying not to wake any of the sleepers.
The next room was well lit with torches along the walls and a dying fire in a large fireplace. From the utensils lining the walls, the large kettle in the fireplace and the tables, Megan suspected she had found the castle kitchens. And most of the girls from the harem were there. As she entered conversation stopped.
“I take it there’s some problem?” she asked, looking at the faces. Shanea was standing with her arms folded next to an older woman Megan didn’t recognize. Amber was on the other side of the woman with most of the girls Megan had brought arranged in a semicircle opposite the trio. Mirta was standing off to one side, watching. In addition to the “girls” and some women that, from their clothing and mostly angry expressions she suspected were native to the castle, there was a tall, incredibly tall, woman who appeared to have fully functional wings.
“Megan, it’s bloody freezing in here and they tell us there aren’t enough clothes or blankets to go around,” Ashly said, angrily. She had her arms folded as well and Megan suddenly realized it was less a defensive stance than against the cold; she was still wearing only the brief clothing she had been wearing in the escape and she was shivering in the cold. Despite the fire that had, apparently, been burning in the fireplace, the room was bitterly cold. Megan realized that none of them were wearing more and she suddenly felt uncomfortable in the heavy fur robe that McClure had thrown over her shoulders.
“From what I’ve seen it’s true,” Megan said, taking off the robe. She immediately felt the biting cold of the room and regretted the gesture. But she didn’t put the robe back on. “You should look in the next room.”
“Mistress Travante, I’m Flora McClure,” the older woman said, stepping forward with her hand out. The woman was small and slender to the point of emaciation. “Jock’s wife. For some reason he didn’t think we needed to be introduced,” the woman added, acerbically.
“I suspect he’s going to regret that,” Megan said with a grin. “Look, Ashly, the rest of you, I had planned on going to Norau. That didn’t work out. We’re here and we’re damned well not going back. If any of you think you’ll be better off with the New Destiny legions, from what I hear they’re no more than a half day’s walk.” She looked around at the girls and then snorted. “That’s what I thought. We’re here. Until we can get picked up we’re going to have to make the best of it. Now, Flora, what can we do to help?”
“There’s not much we can do, now, about clothing and blankets,” Flora said, shaking her head. “We make sure each of the soldiers has a blanket and their cloak; they’ve often got to fight out in the wet and sleep out in it besides. But we only have the wool to make cloth with, and not much of that. We shear in the spring and what we get then is it. Most of it is woven by now and it’s all in use. I’ve scrounged up a few blankets by taking them from other women; now they’re without. I’ll see what I can find in the way of clothing in the morning. That cloak you have Jock traded for and it’s the only one like it in the castle; there aren’t many fur-bearing animals up here in the highlands.”
“We’ll manage, Megan,” Amber said. “We’ll sleep in a pile with as many blankets as Flora can scrounge.”
“This is going to kill my baby,” Vera said.
Megan noted that the baby had been wrapped up in scraps of wool and shook her head. “Flora, can the pregnant women and the ones with children, at least, be put near a fire?”