The girl started turning to face him but he grabbed her firmly by the back of the neck. “Face forward, hellcat.”
“Lay off!” she yelled, struggling as best as a small girl with her hands tied could against a massively muscled soldier who wasn’t pretending to be gentle.
He turned to Vendurro. “Best fetch Cap.”
Vendurro knocked on the captain’s door. When Braylar didn’t respond right away, he knocked again and called out, “Mulldoos come back, Cap. Got hisself a prisoner. Maybe half a prisoner, truly. Guessing you’ll want to see her though.” He turned around and looked at the group, then whistled, long and low. “Guessing you’ll hold for Cap, but this story ought to be ten kinds of entertaining.”
Mulldoos smiled, which was almost disturbing. “Oh, you’ll hear it soon enough.” He looked at Braylar’s room and then back to Vendurro. “He doing alright?”
Vendurro didn’t answer right away, glanced at me, then at the tiny battered prisoner as if gauging how much he could say. “Been better, I’m thinking. But to hear Lieutenant Hew tell it, or Arki here, been worse, too. So holding steady. For what that’s worth.”
“You seen Hew? Where’s he at?”
“Cap said he might have gotten good word about the whereabouts of…” Vendurro looked at the small girl and added, “That fella we been after. So off to check on that. Be back short like.”
Braylar stepped out of his room, eyes still bloodshot, but otherwise looking no worse than before. Still, as Vendurro said, that wasn’t anything to feel tremendously good about. It was difficult to tell which ailed him more-the ale or the demons he was trying to drown.
He looked ready to issue a biting remark of some kind when he stopped himself, noticing the small and scruffy newcomer in the room. Then he looked at Mulldoos. “Well. This is the rogue witch, is she?”
Before Mulldoos could answer, the girl said, “No witch at all. Told them that, told this bastard that, and now I’m-”
Mulldoos cuffed her behind the ear. “Being right disrespectful. This is a captain you’re speaking to.”
She shook her head and said, “Could be the king hisself and I’d tell him the same plaguing thing. Whatever they said I done, they lied. Bunch of lying shits, the lot of them, and I hope when the plague comes through again it hits Ash Walk first.”
Braylar grinned. “And here I thought Lloi was the most irreverent dream thief we’d ever run across.” He looked her bruises over and said, “It’s good to see that you were careful, selective, and discrete.”
Mulldoos shrugged his shoulders. “Most of that was on her already. And as I recollect, seemed our situation called more for results than tip-toeing around. It’s nothing but dumb chance I managed to turn this hellcat up at all. Villagers were fixing to kill her dead when I rode up. You want me to send her hissing back into the wild, though, you just say the word. And you want her drowned in the river, that works as well too.”
She stomped back, trying to strike his shin or foot, but mostly hit floor. He grabbed her by the neck. “Settle down there, you little bitch.” Which only made her thrash more until he gave her a firm shake.
Braylar said, “Oh, she’ll stay a bit longer. At least until I’ve determined her use. Or lack thereof, more likely.”
Which set the girl to kicking and squirming again. “You put your cock anywhere near me, I’ll bite it off and spit in in your face, I will. Just see if I don’t.”
Mulldoos cuffed her behind her other ear and Braylar replied, “Oh, I have no doubt about that. But do settle down. I prefer my concubines quite a bit older, recently bathed, and decidedly less hostile.”
She glared at him but stopped struggling. For the moment.
Braylar walked to the table and took a seat. At least he hadn’t stumbled or wobbled overmuch. He folded his hands on the table, still staring at the angry young thing in front of him. “I know you’re simply bursting to tell me the details, Lieutenant. So please. Share how you came to find this vicious, little, scruffy creature that you somehow believe might be allowed anywhere near me if I was prone and helpless. This story, I would love to hear.”
Mulldoos smiled again, the kind a cat might have with the mouse’s tail poking out of the corner of his mouth. “Me and the boys, we hit every inn and tavern in the city, hoping to hear word of a witch out there, expecting not to. Thirsty work, that is. But Alespell is big, with more villages and communities around than most. Heard tell of two sightings, one in Tenvale, the other in Ash Walk. Most rogues get found out, they get done for pretty plaguing fast, so we rode out in a hurry. Would have split up, but Tenvale wasn’t far off the path to Ash Walk, so we just hit there first.”
“But clearly that did not pan out.”
“No, they stoned their witch. Been dead a couple of days already, nailed to a tree. So we kept riding a half day for Ash Walk, figuring to find a similar outcome. But Ash Walkers, they must not get much in the way of excitement, decided to have themselves a trial. Would have ended the same way, for sure, but it delayed killing the girl long enough for us to ride into the square.”
Braylar leaned forward. “Please tell me you paid for your prisoner and didn’t kill everyone in Ash Walk.”
“Nope. That is, yep, no killing, just passed some coin across. Seemed the village elders weren’t too keen on losing their chance for a little fun. Stoning, drowning, burning, whatever else they had in store for the lady here.” The girl turned and scowled at him, but held her tongue, and Mull-doos continued, “Asked a pretty coin for the release, so not charging by the pound. I thought about cleaving one of those bastards, to help the bargaining speed up a bit. But I paid up. No blood.”
Braylar looked closely at the girl. “And you think she possesses the requisite… skills?”
Mulldoos shook his head. “No plaguing idea. But the villagers seemed right certain she was thieving dreams.”
“Liars!” she spat.
Mulldoos looked ready to smack her again but didn’t. “True or false, they claimed she had a way of creeping into people’s skulls, especially when they were sleeping. Knew things she ought not to. So she’s got as good a chance as any of having some rogue blood in her. Which is to say, probably none. Villagers are superstitious whoresons who don’t know their asses from their faces. Still, she was the only one in the area. Me, I say we send for a proper Memoridon, and fuck the consequences. Bound to be one close. Guessing the Empire’s got one hounding us.”
Braylar didn’t respond with the venom I expected, especially given how he had dressed Mulldoos down only a few days ago. “No, Lieutenant. This is what we have to work with. Such as it is.” He stared at her. “So, girl, you deny being a dream thief, do you?”
She pushed some greasy hair out of her face. “Answered you already.”
Braylar rapped on the table. “You aren’t dim, lass. That much is certain. Which is good. I have absolutely no use for dimness. But impertinence will get you nowhere good here either. My man there might not be the most delicate solider alive, but he did rescue you from a decidedly bad fate. You would do well to cooperate now, lest you find yourself in equally dire straits tonight. What’s your name, girl?”
She tucked another strand behind her ear, and I thought she was close to feeling the back of the lieutenant’s hand again, when she said, quietly. “Junjee. Junjee Millstone.”
“Very good, Junjee. So. Your fellow Ashians, friends and family all, were ready to string you up, accusing you of sifting through dreams, and taking what you wanted. Yet you maintain you were completely innocent, yes? But let me put it to you one more time: can you do these things? I ask, not wanting to kill you for it, or punish you at all, but to preserve you, to save you, so that you can assist me. So answer, lass, and speak true.”
Junjee tilted that proud little chin up, looked him directly in the eye with the poise of a woman two or three times her age, and said, “I got no other answer for you but the one I gave already. Gave it and gave it and gave it. Got nothing left to say. So do what you do. Only know if you violate me, I’ll-”