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I found the food fascinating. I had to try a bit of everything. There were a couple of things I spat out as soon as I put them in my mouth – which made the girls giggle even more – but most things were an adventure in every mouthful. Pitr pecked and nibbled at things, despite the woman telling him ‘try this’ and scooting new dishes under his nose for him to try. After a while, I saw she was getting cross, or offended, or something, but she certainly didn’t look happy.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, to attract her attention. ‘My friend and I come from a place where all we have to eat are food bricks. He isn’t used to so many different tastes.’
The woman’s face cleared and shifted to a broad, sympathetic smile as she nodded at me. She spoke in a whisper to one of the girls who shot out of the tent at something close to a run and in no more than a couple of minutes she was back, proudly carrying a sealed food brick. The woman took a plate from near Pitr, scraped the food from it into a bowl, then placed the food brick on the plate and presented it to him.
Pitr looked at it, then at the woman, and for a moment I thought he was going to cry. He settled for a heartfelt ‘Thank you. Thank you so very much,’ then settled down to eat. He had at least tried some of the other food, but I wondered if Pitr was going to have a problem later on if he didn’t start getting used to stuff other than food bricks.
The woman and the girls cleared the food away and we were left to ourselves. I didn’t even think about suggesting we try to escape.
The next morning we were woken by the woman with the three girls bringing us breakfast. Well, bringing me breakfast. Pitr got another brick, although I did manage to get him to try some of what they brought me. He didn’t spit it out, which was something, but his face sort of imploded. I devoured it. It came in a thick orange skin that they showed me how to peel off, and tasted sweet and sharp at the same time and was like sparkles in my mouth. There were a couple of hard little lumps that hurt my teeth when I bit until I learned to look out for them and spit them out, but otherwise I was in heaven.
We were kept waiting until noon, then Brytar came back into the urt with Cheln. Cheln was carrying all of our stuff. We stood when they came in, and Cheln put everything at our feet. Not threw. Put. I flashed a look at Pitr, who I found was looking at me. Eyebrows were mutually raised.
‘I have spoken with nearby elders. We cannot tell who you are or what you are, and we have sent runners to the nearest tribes,’ Brytar said. ‘If you are spies you are either incompetent or excellent. If you are travellers, we have no argument with you and no right to impede your journey. Cheln and several others will escort you to the edge of the deep forest, and you may continue your journey from there.’
He paused for a moment, then his shoulders slumped slightly. ‘My grand-daughter can be overly dramatic at times, and occasionally adds flourishes to stories to make them more interesting. Some of us,’ and here he glanced at Cheln, who blushed slightly, ‘forget this. I apologise for any injury she has done.’
‘Thank you, Brytar,’ said Pitr, and I echoed the sentiment.
‘When can you be ready to leave?’ said Cheln, still looking at us with suspicion, and I knew he wasn’t escorting us for our protection, but to make sure we got off their land and stayed off.
‘Right now?’ I replied, and got a nudge in the ribs from Pitr.
‘As soon as is convenient for you,’ he replied, looking between Cheln and Brytar.
‘Then share one more meal with us,’ said Brytar. ‘We can at least see that you do not leave us hungry.’
This time we ate outside with everybody else. Pitr was given a food brick again, but he picked at a few other dishes without being asked. I didn’t comment on it.. I saw the girl who had tried to steal our bags, Alyssa, hovering in the background. I tried to meet her eye a couple of times, but she was too far away and moved around too much. Besides, she was wearing her long hair loose and it kept falling forward and covering most of her face.
Many people came to eat with us near the cooking fire. Others preferred to watch from a distance, standing outside their urts with naked children shyly peeping around from the protection of their mothers’ skirts.
Meal over we shouldered our packs, which had both been stuffed to the corners with food and bricks, and we set off with Cheln and two of his men. Cheln made us show him which way the drones wanted us to go, but said nothing else. The other two men were no better conversationalists and we travelled in silence for the rest of the day. They also walked a bit faster than was comfortable for me, worse for Pitr, so we were relieved when Cheln called a halt as the light started to fade.
‘In not more than a thousand strides the deep forest ends and the lesser forest begins. We shall leave you here. I suggest you rest before you go on.’ He waved at his men and they set off back the way we had come. I expected Cheln to just walk off, but after a couple of steps he stopped and turned back to us. ‘Good luck to you both.’
And then he was gone.
When I woke up the next morning, Alyssa was sitting cross-legged on the ground a little way from our feet, grinning. This was the best look I had got at her close up. She was sort of pretty, but she had a slightly stuck-out chin, and looked like she was used to getting her own way. Her hair was not black, like I had first thought, but a dark chestnut brown. She had put it back in a long plait that hung down the middle of her back. She was a few centimetres shorter than Pitr, and I guessed she was more his age than mine. With her woven-plant tunic and shorts, she would have looked like a boy if it hadn’t been for her hair. On her feet she wore some sort of sandals that were no more than a sole and a thong to hold them to each foot. The ends were wrapped around her ankle and tied off. She had a polished circular stone, thin and black, on a thin cord around her neck.
‘You two sleep too much,’ she said. ‘I’ve been sitting here for ages.’