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LJI F&R 14: Dancing in the streets...
Mar. 16th, 2016 03:11 pmThe story so far:
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Part 11
Malon’s mother certainly did not look sinister. From my third-floor perch in the secret shaft that ran the height of the inn and past the room in which Usha was held prisoner, I saw—through a peephole—a short, plump elderly woman with gray hair and a kindly face of tanned and wrinkled skin, creased here an there with what Lascaux would have described as “laughter lines.” She was gently moving to and fro in a rocker, not far from a bed upon which I saw part of a covered form—Usha, undoubtedly—and was reading a book with a magnifying glass. A teacup rested on a saucer on a small table next to her chair.
A knock came at the door. The woman put down the book and the magnifier and moved her hands under a knitted throw that covered her knees. She now looked as if she might have been sleeping when the knock came.
“Enter!” said the woman. I heard a door open, then close, and Finch and Ellmore stepped into my field of view.
“You summoned us, mum,” said Finch, not asking a question but stating a fact.
“Goodness, did I now?,” said the woman in mock surprise and confusion as her hands came back out from under the throw and she rocked backward slightly to reach for something on the floor behind the table with the cup. She brought a bottle into view. It was half-filled with a brown liquid of some kind—distilled spirits was my guess.
“If I had ‘summoned’ you two dolts,” she continued—and here, her voice hardened and those “laughter lines” were revealed to be “anger lines” instead, ”I’d have expected you to have reported here to me sooner.” She removed the cork from the bottle and replenished her teacup, then took a swig directly from the bottle and returned it to the floor, as the two men shifted nervously before her. The woman’s features softened again. “What news of the escapee?” she asked.
“None, mother Malon,” said Finch.
“None,” repeated the woman, and remained silent for a beat. Her eyebrows went up slightly and she shook her head. “Incompetence, wherever you look,” she said, to nobody in particular. Then, to the men: “What’d that scrawn-bag do, disappear into thin air?”
Apparently, this was not a question for which an answer was expected, as both men remained silent. Mother Malon—as I had begun to think of her—inhaled a deep, wheezy breath and exhaled it in exasperation. The exhalation ended with a coughing fit, which she suppressed by burying her mouth into the crook of her arm. Mother Malon was not a well woman.
“So, then,” she said, after regaining her composure. “Here’s what we’re going to do. The boy obviously knows the girl is here, and he appears uncommonly adapted to moving about without hindrance, so…” Mother Malon paused to take a sip of ‘tea,’ and continued, “Go to the storeroom behind the kitchen, empty out one of the crates you’ll find there and bring it up here. We’re going to put the girl in the crate and then take it and some of the other crates, load them on a cart, and take them to the farmhouse, where we’ll keep the girl until my son gets back from Celeron.”
“Why not keep her here?” asked Ellroy, as Finch angled an elbow into his side. “Ow!,” said Ellroy. “What? It’s just a question!”
Mother Malon regarded Ellroy for a moment, and said, “I don’t want to take any chances. If that twerp doesn’t know where she is, or thinks she’s where she’s not, he can’t rescue her. Now stop asking stupid questions and get cracking. Be back here in half an hour, or I’ll slice off your family jewels and feed them to the dogs, understood?”
Finch and Ellroy acknowledged her instructions and took their leave. Once the door was closed, the woman took off the throw that covered her knees, lifted a short, intricately decorated sword with a guarded hilt and slightly curved blade from her lap, and put it on the table next to the teacup. She rose with some effort and moved to the bed to see to the condition of her prisoner.
I heard, more than saw, a flurry of motion near the bed, just outside my field of view. I then heard a wheezy intake of breath that was suddenly cut off by the sound of a blow landing, and then Mother Malon fell back into sight, unconscious, with blood seeping from her temple as her head bounced off the floor. Usha came into view, a bedsheet wrapped hastily around her naked body. She moved to the table, picked up the sword, and brandished it toward the woman on the floor as if to ward off a demon.
I shifted my position at the peephole so I could speak through it. “Usha!” I said, as loudly as I dared. “It’s me, Feather!”
I put my eye back to the orifice and saw Usha looking in my general direction. “Feather?” she said, her eyes wide open in surprise and disbelief. “Where are you?”
My answer came in the form of operating the mechanism to open the secret door into the room. Usha’s initial response to what appeared to be a pivoting piece of wall was to point the blade she held in my direction, but when she saw me behind the door, she lowered her blade and smiled, and the sheet fell from he shoulders.
Have I ever mentioned how beautiful Usha is? I mean, even when dressed?
I made a show of politely averting my eyes.
“Quickly,” I said, “find something to wear, and let’s get out of here!” I half expected a flurry of questions from her, but none came as she had already begun to search the room for garments. Meanwhile, I cautiously examined Mother Malon to make sure she was not faking her condition. She was not. Either Usha’s blow or her head hitting the floor had killed her. Usha did not pause in her search when I announced the old lady was dead. “Good!” was all she said, and did not pause in her search. We could dance in the streets later, I concluded.
It quickly became clear there were no other clothes in the room, so Usha motioned me to turn away—which I did—whereupon I heard what sounded like wrestling. When I felt a tap on my shoulder, I turned and saw that Usha had stripped Mother Malon and donned the old lady’s garb. I brought Usha over to the shaft, pointed out the ladder, and quickly explained how we were going to escape. “You start on down,” I said. “I need to arrange things for Malon and his men, and then make sure the door is closed behind us.
Usha started down the ladder.
I moved Mother Malon’s body back to the rocker. After wiping the blood from the floor and her temple, I arranged the throw so as to hide the fact of her missing clothes and give the impression she had originally suggested—of an old woman that had covered herself to take a nap. I then piled several handfuls of miscellaneous rags that Usha had found in her search onto the bed in the shape of a body and covered them with the sheet.
If I gauged the relation between the old lady and Malon’s men correctly, their reaction to not hearing a response to a knock when they returned might very well be to open the door quietly, observe an unconscious prisoner and a sleeping Mother Malon, and to return later rather than to knock harder and risk incurring the old woman’s wrath.
I moved to the shaft, closed the secret door, and climbed down to the bottom of the ladder to join Usha. Then, hand in hand, we moved down the passage toward the panel that led to the root cellar and freedom.
The next part.
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Part 11
Malon’s mother certainly did not look sinister. From my third-floor perch in the secret shaft that ran the height of the inn and past the room in which Usha was held prisoner, I saw—through a peephole—a short, plump elderly woman with gray hair and a kindly face of tanned and wrinkled skin, creased here an there with what Lascaux would have described as “laughter lines.” She was gently moving to and fro in a rocker, not far from a bed upon which I saw part of a covered form—Usha, undoubtedly—and was reading a book with a magnifying glass. A teacup rested on a saucer on a small table next to her chair.
A knock came at the door. The woman put down the book and the magnifier and moved her hands under a knitted throw that covered her knees. She now looked as if she might have been sleeping when the knock came.
“Enter!” said the woman. I heard a door open, then close, and Finch and Ellmore stepped into my field of view.
“You summoned us, mum,” said Finch, not asking a question but stating a fact.
“Goodness, did I now?,” said the woman in mock surprise and confusion as her hands came back out from under the throw and she rocked backward slightly to reach for something on the floor behind the table with the cup. She brought a bottle into view. It was half-filled with a brown liquid of some kind—distilled spirits was my guess.
“If I had ‘summoned’ you two dolts,” she continued—and here, her voice hardened and those “laughter lines” were revealed to be “anger lines” instead, ”I’d have expected you to have reported here to me sooner.” She removed the cork from the bottle and replenished her teacup, then took a swig directly from the bottle and returned it to the floor, as the two men shifted nervously before her. The woman’s features softened again. “What news of the escapee?” she asked.
“None, mother Malon,” said Finch.
“None,” repeated the woman, and remained silent for a beat. Her eyebrows went up slightly and she shook her head. “Incompetence, wherever you look,” she said, to nobody in particular. Then, to the men: “What’d that scrawn-bag do, disappear into thin air?”
Apparently, this was not a question for which an answer was expected, as both men remained silent. Mother Malon—as I had begun to think of her—inhaled a deep, wheezy breath and exhaled it in exasperation. The exhalation ended with a coughing fit, which she suppressed by burying her mouth into the crook of her arm. Mother Malon was not a well woman.
“So, then,” she said, after regaining her composure. “Here’s what we’re going to do. The boy obviously knows the girl is here, and he appears uncommonly adapted to moving about without hindrance, so…” Mother Malon paused to take a sip of ‘tea,’ and continued, “Go to the storeroom behind the kitchen, empty out one of the crates you’ll find there and bring it up here. We’re going to put the girl in the crate and then take it and some of the other crates, load them on a cart, and take them to the farmhouse, where we’ll keep the girl until my son gets back from Celeron.”
“Why not keep her here?” asked Ellroy, as Finch angled an elbow into his side. “Ow!,” said Ellroy. “What? It’s just a question!”
Mother Malon regarded Ellroy for a moment, and said, “I don’t want to take any chances. If that twerp doesn’t know where she is, or thinks she’s where she’s not, he can’t rescue her. Now stop asking stupid questions and get cracking. Be back here in half an hour, or I’ll slice off your family jewels and feed them to the dogs, understood?”
Finch and Ellroy acknowledged her instructions and took their leave. Once the door was closed, the woman took off the throw that covered her knees, lifted a short, intricately decorated sword with a guarded hilt and slightly curved blade from her lap, and put it on the table next to the teacup. She rose with some effort and moved to the bed to see to the condition of her prisoner.
I heard, more than saw, a flurry of motion near the bed, just outside my field of view. I then heard a wheezy intake of breath that was suddenly cut off by the sound of a blow landing, and then Mother Malon fell back into sight, unconscious, with blood seeping from her temple as her head bounced off the floor. Usha came into view, a bedsheet wrapped hastily around her naked body. She moved to the table, picked up the sword, and brandished it toward the woman on the floor as if to ward off a demon.
I shifted my position at the peephole so I could speak through it. “Usha!” I said, as loudly as I dared. “It’s me, Feather!”
I put my eye back to the orifice and saw Usha looking in my general direction. “Feather?” she said, her eyes wide open in surprise and disbelief. “Where are you?”
My answer came in the form of operating the mechanism to open the secret door into the room. Usha’s initial response to what appeared to be a pivoting piece of wall was to point the blade she held in my direction, but when she saw me behind the door, she lowered her blade and smiled, and the sheet fell from he shoulders.
Have I ever mentioned how beautiful Usha is? I mean, even when dressed?
I made a show of politely averting my eyes.
“Quickly,” I said, “find something to wear, and let’s get out of here!” I half expected a flurry of questions from her, but none came as she had already begun to search the room for garments. Meanwhile, I cautiously examined Mother Malon to make sure she was not faking her condition. She was not. Either Usha’s blow or her head hitting the floor had killed her. Usha did not pause in her search when I announced the old lady was dead. “Good!” was all she said, and did not pause in her search. We could dance in the streets later, I concluded.
It quickly became clear there were no other clothes in the room, so Usha motioned me to turn away—which I did—whereupon I heard what sounded like wrestling. When I felt a tap on my shoulder, I turned and saw that Usha had stripped Mother Malon and donned the old lady’s garb. I brought Usha over to the shaft, pointed out the ladder, and quickly explained how we were going to escape. “You start on down,” I said. “I need to arrange things for Malon and his men, and then make sure the door is closed behind us.
Usha started down the ladder.
I moved Mother Malon’s body back to the rocker. After wiping the blood from the floor and her temple, I arranged the throw so as to hide the fact of her missing clothes and give the impression she had originally suggested—of an old woman that had covered herself to take a nap. I then piled several handfuls of miscellaneous rags that Usha had found in her search onto the bed in the shape of a body and covered them with the sheet.
If I gauged the relation between the old lady and Malon’s men correctly, their reaction to not hearing a response to a knock when they returned might very well be to open the door quietly, observe an unconscious prisoner and a sleeping Mother Malon, and to return later rather than to knock harder and risk incurring the old woman’s wrath.
I moved to the shaft, closed the secret door, and climbed down to the bottom of the ladder to join Usha. Then, hand in hand, we moved down the passage toward the panel that led to the root cellar and freedom.
The next part.
