“It would also leave you stranded in the back of beyond up near, where was it, Hasleholm, if I don’t come back, wouldn’t it?” Miriam pointed out.
“On the other hand, you’d be in the right place. You could make your way to Fort Lofstrom and tell Angbard what happened. He’d take care of you,” she added. “Just tell him I ordered you to come along with me. He’ll swallow that.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Brilliana said evenly. “Not until I’ve seen more of this wonderful world.”
Miriam nodded soberly at her. “Me too, kid. So we’re not going to plan on me not coming back, are we? Instead, we’re going to plan on us both going over, spending the night at a coach-house, and then walking down the road to the next one. They’re only about twenty miles apart—it’s a fair hike, but not impossible. Along the way, I disappear, and catch up with you later. We spend the night there, then we turn back—and cross back here. How does that sound?”
“Three days?” Brill looked thoughtful. “And you’ll bring me back here?”
“Of course.” Miriam brooded for a moment. “I think I want some more tea,” she decided. “Want some?”
“Oh yes!” Brilliana sat up eagerly. “Is there any of Earl Grey’s own blend?”
“I’ll just check.” Miriam wandered into Paulette’s kitchen, her mind spinning gears like a car in neutral. She filled the kettle, set it on the hob to boil, began searching for tea bags. There’s got to be a way to make this work better, she thought. The real problem was mobility. If she could just arrange how to meet up with Brill fifteen miles down the road without having to walk the distance herself—“Oh,” she said, as the kettle began to boil.
“What is it?” asked Brill, behind her.
“It’s so obvious!” Miriam said as she picked the kettle up. “I should have figured it out before.”
“Figured? What ails you?”
She poured boiling water into the teapot. “A form of speech. I meant, I’ve worked out what I need to do.” She put the lid on the pot, moved it onto a tray, and picked it up to carry back into the living room. “Go on.”
“You’ve hatched a plan?”
“Yes.” Miriam kicked the kitchen door shut behind her. “It’s quite simple. I’ve been worrying about having to camp in the woods in winter, or make myself understood, or keep up appearances with you. That’s wrong. What I should have been thinking about is how I can move myself about, over there, to somewhere where there’s shelter, without involving anyone else. Right?”
“That makes sense.” Brilliana looked dubious. “But how are you going to do that, unless you walk? You couldn’t take a horse through. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any horses here—”
Miriam took a deep breath. “Brill, when Paulie gets back I think we’re going to go shopping. For an all-terrain bicycle, a pair of night-vision goggles, a sewing machine, and some fabric…”
The devil was in the details. In the end it took Miriam two days to buy her bicycle. She spent the first day holed up with cycle magazines, spokehead Web sites, and the TV blaring extreme sports at her. The second day consisted of being patronized in successive shops by men in skintight neon Lycra bodysuits, to Brill’s quietly scandalized amusement. In the end, the vehicle of Miriam’s desire turned out to be a Dahon folding mountain bike, built out of chromed aluminium tubes. It wasn’t very light, but at thirty pounds—including carrying case and toolset—she could carry it across easily enough, and it wasn’t a toy. It was a real mountain bike that folded down into something she could haul in a backpack and, more importantly, something that could carry herself and a full load over dirt trails as fast as a horse.
“What is that thing?” Brill asked, when she finished unfolding it on a spread of newspapers on Paulette’s living room carpet. “It looks like something you torture people with.”
“That’s a fair assessment.” Miriam grimaced as she worked the allen keys on the saddle-post, trying to get it locked at a comfortable height. “I haven’t ridden a bike in years. Hope I haven’t forgotten how.”
“When you sit on that thing, you can’t possibly be modest.”
“Well, no,” Miriam admitted. “I plan to only use it out of sight of other people.” She finished on the saddle and began hunting for an attachment place for the toolkit. “The Swiss army used to have a regiment of soldiers who rode these things, as mounted infantry—not cavalry. They could cover two hundred miles a day on roads, seventy a day in the mountains. I’m no soldier, but I figure this will get me around faster than my feet.”
“You’ll still need clothing,” Brill pointed out. “And so will I. What I came across in isn’t suitable for stamping around in the forest in winter! And we couldn’t possibly be seen wearing your camping gear if we expect to stay in a coaching inn.”
“Yup. Which is where this machine comes in.” Miriam pointed to the other big box, occupying a large chunk of the floor. “I take it there’s no chance that you already know how to use an overlocker?”
The overlocker took them most of the rest of the day to figure out, and it nearly drove Paulette to distraction when she came home from the errand she’d been running to find Miriam oiling a bicycle in the hall and Brill puzzling out the manual for an industrial sewing machine and a bunch of costume patterns Miriam had bought. “You’re turning my house into an asylum!” she accused Miriam, after kicking her shoes off.
“Yeah, I am. How’s the office hunt going?”
“Badly,” snapped Paulette. Her voice changed: “Offices, oy, have we got offices! You should see our offices, such wonderful offices you have never imagined! By the way, how long have you been in business? There’ll be a deposit if it’s less than two years.”
“Uh-huh.” Miriam nodded. “How big a deposit?”
“Six months rent,” Paulie swallowed. “For two thousand square feet with a loading bay and a thousand feet of office above it, that comes to about thirty thousand bucks. Plus municipal tax, sewer, electric and gas. And the broadband you want.”
“Hmm.” Miriam nodded to herself, then hit the quick-release bolts. The bike folded in on itself like an intricate origami sculpture and she locked it down in its most compact position, then eased the carrying case over it.
“Hey, that’s real neat,” Paulette said admiringly. “You turning into a fitness freak in your old age?”
“Don’t change the subject.” Miriam grunted, then upended the case and zipped it shut. Folded, the bike was a beast. She could get the thing comfortably on her back but would be hard put to carry anything else. Hmm.
“Back in a minute.” She shouldered the bike pack and marched to the back door that opened on Paulette’s yard. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered, and pulled out her locket.
Half an hour later she was back without the bike, staggering slightly, shivering with cold, and rubbing her sore forehead. “Oh, I really don’t need to do that so fast,” she groaned.
“If you will do that with no preparation—” Paulette began to say waspishly.
“No, no.” Miriam waved her away. “I took my pills, boss, honest. It’s just really cold over there.”
“Where did you stash it?” Paulie asked practically.
“Where your back wall is, over on the other side, where there’s nothing but forest. Brrr. Up against a tree, I cut a gash in the bark.” She brandished her knife. “Won’t be hard to find if we go over from here: Main thing will be walking to the road, the nearest one is about half a mile away. Better go in the morning.”