"I don't s'pose you want anything to eat?" he asked. "Beans ain't done, but they're cooking in broth, you could have a bowl of that an' bread."
Kira's gorge rose at the mere thought of eating, and she shook her head as violently as she dared. Right now, though, she'd have traded every valuable she had ever owned for a mug of willow tea for her aching head.
"Just sit there an' get warm, an' when you wanta sleep, take the rug into the wagon with you. I don' need it," he said gruffly, and left them alone.
There was a pot on the fire in front of them, which Kira's nose told her was the one that held the broth and some simmering beans; next to the fire was a stack of joumeybread, and a stack of bowls beside it. Good; the little seeds wouldn't stand out in a pot of beans. Hopefully, before they got chased into the wagon, her stomach would settle and she could slip the seeds into the pot under cover of getting bowls of broth for herself and Meri. If this was a camp like any other, the beans were for breakfast, as it would take that long for them to soften in the cooking enough to eat.
Meanwhile, she and Meri pretended to doze as sick children do, and she watched as much of the camp as she could see without moving her head. Slowly, her stomach settled; slowly her headache went away. The cold air helped, and so did the fact that they weren't moving anymore.
Although these men were dressed roughly, they didn't act like anything other than a well-trained group, accustomed to working together -- so the shabby clothing they had over their armor must have been a disguise. Three of them quickly put up a small but luxurious tent, got coals from the fire for a brazier to heat it, and brought in a generous amount of bedding, before arranging their own bedding beside the fire. Kira got a brief look at the tent's owner before he went inside and laced the door shut; he wasn't shabbily dressed, and she thought he was the owner of the Jkathan accent.
The rest of the men seemed to relax a little when he went inside his own little quarters, though they studiously ignored the girls' presence. Some of them had been hurt in the fight, and they took this opportunity to get each other bandaged properly. Kira was obscurely grateful that she hadn't known any of her own guards; it would have been horrible to sit there watching these people patch themselves up, while wondering which of them had been the murderer of someone she knew.
Some of the men went out of the camp and didn't come back -- they had gone out on guard duty, Kira was fairly certain, which made it less likely that she and Meri could slip away under cover of darkness. And even if we did, where would we go? I don't know where we are, and neither does Meri. "You've got to know your territory before you can hide easily, or find help.
Some of the men dipped out bowls full of broth to soak their bread in and sat down on their bedding to alternate broth-dipped bread with bites of dried meat. They didn't seem inclined to talk much, not even with their fellows; as soon as they finished their abbreviated meals, they crawled into their bedrolls and were soon snoring. Kira wondered how they could sleep so easily after the awful fight, after killing and being wounded. Shouldn't they be staring up at the sky, sleepless, or haunted by nightmares?
Maybe they don't care anymore.
The thought was too horrible, and she resolutely put it away. Feeling bad wasn't going to fix anything right now. What she and Meri needed do was to get their own plan in motion, to slow their captors down.
Maybe in the process, they'd find an opportunity to escape. "Want to go back to the wagon?" Kira whispered. "I'm feeling better."
"I could eat broth and bread -- if you were thinking of that." Meri squeezed her hand to show that she remembered the plan for Kira to doctor their kidnappers' food. "I'll take the robe back to the wagon, if you can bring food for both of us."
One of the men roused from sleep and watched them as they got up, but lost interest when they crept about with all the symptoms of still being ill and weak. Meri dragged the heavy robe back to the wagon and climbed inside; Kira feigned equal weakness and wobbled toward the fire.
She was afraid that the helpful fellow would show up and dip out the broth for her, but evidently he was on guard duty, and the only men still awake looked pointedly away from her. Maybe their consciences were bothering them -- here were these two poor little girls, obviously sick, who should have been at home in bed, not dragged about in a prison-wagon. That only made her subterfuge easier, and she whispered a little prayer of thanks as she made the most of her opportunity. The seeds were in a drawstring bag that matched one of Meri's dresses and had been meant to hang on her belt. The bag was up her sleeve, and she'd already unfastened the mouth of it. As she dipped out the second bowl of broth, a steady stream of seeds poured out of her sleeve into the pot, the splashing they made covered neatly by the noises she made dipping out the broth. She made sure to take enough bread to hide in the wagon for breakfast -- they would not want to share those beans, and could easily feign an attack of nausea to cover their disinterest in food. Once the caravan got back underway, they could eat the bread without fear of discovery.
She handed the food to Meri and climbed into the wagon herself, pleased to discover that Meri had taken the clothing in their packs and made a kind of nest out of it. "Hide most of that bread," she whispered, as she got in beside her sister and took back her bowl. "We'll need it for tomorrow."
She tasted her broth, and wished for Devid Cook; it wasn't horrible, but it was very flat, unseasoned, probably made by boiling unsalted dried meat. The journeybread wasn't any better, but when the bread was soaked in the broth it made a palatable mush that was warm, and it was probably better for their tender stomachs than real food would have been.
After that, there didn't seem anything more to do but sleep, so they curled up around each other to share the warmth of their bodies, and somehow, in spite of all the horrible things that had happened to them, they fell quickly and dreamlessly into sleep.
It wasn't even dawn when the camp roused and the men began packing things up, and not at all quietly either. There was a lot of cursing, groaning -- wounds had probably stiffened in the night, and so had muscles. Horses stamped and complained, harness jingled, but all of the sounds were very brisk and businesslike. They probably aren't taking any chances that someone might follow, Kira thought muzzily. They want to get as far away from the ambush as possible. The farther they are, the less likely that anyone will connect them to it.
Their helper poked his face into the wagon door just at that moment. "Need the bushes?" he asked. He looked friendlier today, and Kira found herself hoping he hadn't been part of the ambush. She didn't want to hate him.
They nodded, and he helped them out of the wagon again, then took them over to the side of the camp and pointed to some very thick evergreen bushes a little shorter than they were. "Keep your heads in sight, one of you, anyway," was all he said; they took the hint, went to the other side and relieved themselves quickly. At least he hadn't made them take care of it while he watched.
They continued to feign weakness and sickness as he escorted them back to the wagon. "Want breakfast? You won't get another chance till we stop, and that won't be until dark," he told them, and both of them shook their heads violently. "Right, then. In you go." Rather than wait for them to climb into the wagon, he picked each of them up in rum and left them on the floor. "Here-" He dropped in a water-skin beside them. "Got stomach troubles, you can't let yourself get all dried out. Drink that a bit at a time. Try and sleep; the less noise you make, the better off you'll be. He doesn't want any trouble, and he's not one to cross."