[Mkguild] Justice in Vengeance Refrain (7)

[Ryx]

            Murikeer pushed the door open while Elvmere held the tray of food 
and held it as the priestly raccoon in the guise of human minstrel-in-training 
sidled into the cell past him.  Upon the cot Malger sprawled as if thrown; 
akimbo.  He mumbled wordlessly while his erstwhile students filed into the small 
room.  While Elvmere carefully lowered the tray onto the stool cum table 
Murikeer crossed over toward Malger.
            Murikeer was surprised at Malger’s condition.  Physically he was in 
remarkably good shape for having been in a life-or-death bloodbath only three 
days previously.  His bruises were for the most part little more than fading 
yellow splotches on his illusory human torso.  The worst of them were the sickly 
greenish pallor of half healed bruises weeks old, not days.  Kneeling he leaned 
forward to examine the stitches on his wounds but a sudden outburst drew his 
attention away.
            “I am not yet dead.” Malger muttered flatly and then heaved a great 
sigh, “Though I wish I were.” Even as he spoke the last word his eyes opened and 
he twitched upon finding Murikeer’s human face hovering close by.  “Ugh… now I 
suffer nightmares even as I wake.” He grumbled.  Raising an arm weakly he 
grasped Murikeer’s shoulder and tried to sit up, succeeding only with his 
apprentice’s help.
            “Your humor seems to heal as swiftly as you do.” Murikeer quipped 
once he had gotten Malger righted and stable.  The minstrel’s exhaustion was so 
great he could barely remain upright.
            “I was making a joke?”
            “I certainly trust that you were, droll as it was.” Elvmere chided 
as he leaned over to extend a mug toward Malger and another to Murikeer.  They 
had foregone breaking their fast at the Earl’s table to share the morning with 
their master.  “Chicken stock, Malger, and some freshly prepared fowl if your 
stomach can handle it.  I would like to check on your stitches once we’re 
finished with our meal.”
            Murikeer accepted the cup, of tea rather than broth, and moved to 
sit cross legged on the floor in front of the open door.  Cool morning air, 
touched with a bit of dewy mist, cascaded through the grate above and down the 
stairwell beyond the door.  Raising the cup to his lips he stopped abruptly and 
stiffened in surprise.  Reaching out with his free hand he circled his fingers 
around Elvmere’s arm and squeezed, urgently but not harshly.  Elvmere cast a 
look back over his shoulder, his brows arching when he registered the mage’s 
cautionary glance.
            His good eye then slid from Elvmere’s gaze toward the floor below 
Malger’s cot.  Slowly Elvmere turned his head to follow his gaze and, leaning 
back slightly to see more fully beneath the cot, spied what had caught 
Murikeer’s attention; a lush length of russet red fur tipped with white.  Over 
the top of that bush of fur gazed a pair of vertically slit black pupils in 
fields of striking gold.
            “Company.” Murikeer muttered and set his cup down.  A startled, 
bird-like chirp escaped the owner of fur and golden eyes when the skunk’s magic 
seized it.  Malger started at the sound and yanked his legs back up onto the 
cot, almost falling over as he did.  Waving his mug away from himself with one 
arm he used the other to brace against the wall and look down toward the floor 
in surprise as the intruder was dragged out from under the cot with a skitter of 
claws on stone.
            It was a fox; a normal red hued member of the species common to the 
region.  “Let go!” it shrieked in a high, piping yelp equal parts canid and 
bird, both aspects of which were surprised and offended at the rough treatment.  
All three of them twitched to hear the fox speak but Murikeer did not release 
it.
            “Name yourself!” Murikeer hissed.  Elvmere jumped to his feet, 
almost upsetting the tray as he did, and backed away from the irritated furry 
interloper.
            “Misanthe!” the fox quailed, writhing against the invisible bonds of 
magic Murikeer had wrapped about it with implacable strength.  “Sheyiin!”  With 
a slight motion of his head and one hand Murikeer released his magic.  The fox, 
Misanthe or Sheyiin depending on who addressed her, hastily scrambled back to 
the shelter beneath Malger’s cot.
            “What are you doing here, and how is it you speak in that form?”
            “I come to my master!” she snarled from the shadows under Malger’s 
cot.  With a groan the minstrel dropped his head back against the wall and 
rolled his eyes.  “The monster he slew forced me to learn many things.  Speaking 
in my minor form one of the least!”
            “Master?” Murikeer grunted, shifting his gaze up to Malger and back 
down.  “Come out from there and present yourself in your normal form.”
            “No more crushing?”
            “If you come out, no.  If not, perhaps.” Murikeer wiggled his 
fingers threateningly toward her and retrieved his tea.
            Cautiously Misanthe crept out from under the cot, shifting her 
untrusting golden gaze from Murikeer to Elvmere and back.  Settling back onto 
her haunches the vixen grew rapidly, fur shifting like water over her body as 
she did.  After only a few moments Elvmere gave a choking gasp and shoved past 
Murikeer as he fled the cell.
            Even in her fully realized form the vixen was not particularly big, 
standing considerably shorter than Murikeer, who was not particularly tall by 
even Metamor standards at three inches shy of five feet.  Only his illusion gave 
the impression that he was taller, if not terribly much, still shorter than 
pretty much any adult human they encountered.  Even Malger and Elvmere were 
shorter than the norm among humans, a trait common to Keepers who were cursed 
with forms smaller than natural humans.  Only those, like Duke Thomas, who 
became larger species stood as tall, or much taller, than typical humans.
            And she was quite bereft of clothing.  Murikeer noted that lack only 
in some masculine corner of his brain but did not look away and Malger was too 
exhausted to much care.  He merely sat on his cot clutching his mug of broth 
with both hands and shook his head irritably.  Turning she crouched to reach 
under the cot, looking up at Malger as she did, and fished out a tightly wrapped 
bundle of cloth.  Deftly untying it she gave the bundle a shake and it unrolled 
into a hooded shift of pale bluish gray silk that she slipped on smoothly.
            “She’s dressed now, Elvmere.” Murikeer cast back over his shoulder 
without ever taking his one-eyed gaze from the vixen.  “Now, what are you doing 
here, and why do you think Malger is your master?”
            Moving to the end of Malger’s cot she squatted and draped her 
forearms demurely over her silk clad knees, “He slew the beast who called 
himself my master, the monster who changed me into this.” One hand raised to 
stroke across her muzzle and head, flattening one ear back briefly.  “I serve 
him now.”
            “Why not go home?” Murikeer shifted slightly to one side as Elvmere 
cautiously sidled back into the room, staring at the vixen.  Rearranging the 
upset tray he crouched near Murikeer keeping the tray between himself and the 
new member of their motley band.
            “I cannot.” Misanthe shook her head slowly, “I came to this land by 
a ship long on the sea.  I was sold and moved and sold and moved and sold again, 
finally to the one he slew.” A nod toward Malger, “I know not how to make my way 
back to my homeland and, kitsune that I now am, I fear they would not accept 
me.”
            “Kitsune?” Murikeer and Malger said at the same moment, both 
glancing toward her single tail.
            “In my homeland that merely means fox.” She pointed out rather 
blandly.  “And, were I able, I would not.”  Her head turned toward Malger and 
bowed slightly, “I serve you, now, master.”
            “Gods no!” Malger retorted, ending with a choking cough that nearly 
caused him to spill his broth.  “I do not need some infatuated child dogging my 
heels in the afterlife!”
            “Child?” Misanthe chirped in surprise.
            “Afterlife?” Elvmere intoned curiously at the same time.
            “Where is your homeland, then? Or, was?”
            “Os’var’kai.” The word was accented strangely but Murikeer 
understood it.  He regarded her for several long moments and then let out a 
heavy sigh.
            “Bin lom?”
            “Min lom a’jhes mihahi, khr’es.” Misanthe intoned softly with a bow 
of her head.  She pressed both palms together, fingers upward with her thumbs 
against her chest between the subtle curves of her breasts.
            “Ahh, I do not speak the tongue, lass, I merely know what I have 
read in books.”
            “I am bin lom, yes.  Of the lom there are three houses; the spirit, 
the house, and the body.  A’jhes is of all houses.  I was trained to serve the 
one to whom I was granted; body, spirit, and house in equal measure.”
            “We would call that a retainer.”
            “I do not want a bloody body servant!” Malger groused angrily but 
without much force.  He was too exhausted to give full measure of his ire.  He 
glared at the vixen as if that alone might banish her.  Misanthe frowned 
expressively with her slender, tapered vulpine muzzle, whiskers adroop and ears 
backed.
            Turning her gaze back toward Murikeer and then Elvmere she tilted 
her head slightly, still frowning in discomfort at Malger’s repudiation.  “You 
are curious to me.” She breathed softly as her golden gaze caught and held 
Elvmere’s stare.  After a moment he coughed self-consciously and looked down to 
the tray.  “He was distressed at my nakedness, but not that I am kitsune.  Nor 
you, nor he.” Her eyes flicked to Murikeer and then back to Malger who was 
glowering at the empty mug in his hands wondering when it had become empty.
            Murikeer only shrugged slightly and glanced up at the grate 
overhead.  His ears did not tell him that there was anyone above, nor did his 
nose catch the hint of any company on the cool air spilling in from above.  
“Malger, show her why we are not frightened of what she is.”
            Malger scowled at him and thrust his mug toward Elvmere.  
Diffidently the priest accepted it if for no other reason than to busy himself 
doing something.  Misanthe leaned forward toward him as if she might do 
something but desisted at his startled stare.  “Why me?”
            “Because we need to check your wounds?  You’ll need to take off the 
amulet anyway.”
            “Why don’t you?” Malger huffed petulantly with a glare.
            “And blind her with my scent?  Perhaps later.”
            “Do not even look at me!” Elvmere snapped in alarm.  Murikeer could 
imagine how tightly the priest’s illusion concealed tail was wrapped around his 
ankles if not tucked so far between his legs it could have been tickling his 
chin.
            With a growl Malger shook his head in defeat.  Grasping his amulet 
he wrenched it over his head and threw it down upon the cot.  Misanthe leaned 
back in surprise when his true appearance was revealed, her jaw hanging open 
while she made a strangled bird-like chirp.  “He is… he is…” she tried to speak 
but her voice was, for the moment, stolen away.
            “A marten.” Murikeer offered with a quirk drawing up one corner of 
his muzzle.  He took a sip of his tea and let the vixen regain her wits.
            “A pine marten.” Malger snapped.  When Elvmere offered his mug back, 
along with a hank of bread, he took both with an irritated snatch.  “What does 
this prove?”
            “We are like you, Misanthe; cursed into the forms of animals.  I 
have created amulets of illusion so that we can pass through human lands without 
undue fuss.” Murikeer took a bit of cut meat from the tray and nibbled on it 
while Elvmere refilled his tea.  “I am a skunk, which is why I did not wish to 
offend you with my natural musk, and Elvmere is a raccoon.”
            “The man, men, my master slew did this to you?”
            Murikeer shook his head, “No.  He did not do that to you, either.  
You were taken to the edges of a place that causes this change.  It is a magic 
limited to that place.  Many call it a curse, but others call it a blessing.”  
The skunk shrugged his shoulders expressively and bit a chunk out of the fowl 
they had brought up.  “It changes, but it heals, so it’s a mixed bag.”
            “Can it change me back?”
            Elvmere and Murikeer shook their heads, “No.” Elvmere sighed and 
drank from his own cup, his ill ease fading as the vixen made no move to 
approach.  “That is why it’s a curse.  Once it has you, that’s it.  It’s a one 
way trip.”
            Misanthe’s ears backed and she sighed, looking at her hands. They, 
like her footpaws, were gloved in short black fur.  Her fingers and toes were 
tipped with perfectly tended black claws.  There was a small diamond of white 
nestled in the hollow of her throat between her clavicles and the tip of her 
tail.  All of her other markings were black.  “I long ago made peace with what 
he turned me into.  I guess it shall suffice.”
            “What the dark hells are we supposed to do with her?” Malger flicked 
his fingers toward the vixen, “We don’t have the time, or materials, for you to 
make another illusion for her, and the caravan is gone.”
            “Right now we have other concerns.” Murikeer pointed out, “That 
other Earl is supposed to arrive tomorrow and give his account of your little 
sword dance.  Tathim has told us that he will make his decision once he has 
heard his fellow’s side of things.”
            Malger scratched at his stitches and then bent to worry at them with 
his clawtips.  With a hiss Elvmere leaned over and swatted his hand away before 
bending closer to look at the wound.  “Once you’re done poking me.” He winced 
and twitched away from Elvmere’s touch, “Be kind and shave my neck.  Headsmen 
are not known for especially sharp axes.”
            “Oh, do shut up, Malger.” Elvmere groused.  Misanthe’s ears pricked 
up and the corners of her vulpine muzzle turned upward in a feral grin.
            “Malger, a good name.”
            “Oh, ye dark gods curse me!”
~~
            During the day the Silver river did not so much live up to its 
nickname, but on a night with any moonlight at all it glistened in all of its 
magnificent silver glory.  There were numerous parks and plazas along the 
riverbank beyond the city bounds and even in the wee hours of the morning the 
citizens of Silvassa could often be found wandering the secluded paths alone or 
in pairs.
            The wise would seldom wander them alone, but when one is in love 
they often forego wisdom.
            “NO!” Such carelessness was only to the advantage, he felt himself 
thinking with cold, evil joy.  He struggled to escape this latest and darkest 
nightmare, but Malger was enwrapped in the sleeper’s glee.  It was powerful, 
close, and amazingly electric.  “Nocturna, spare me!”
            There was a single form silhouetted against the moonlit silver glow 
of the river.  She wore a diaphanous silken gown that flowed about her like a 
morning mist; sometimes translucent showing off the youthful curves of her 
lithesome body, at others opaquely mysterious.  In one hand she carried some 
manner of flower, a rose by its long stem and lush bloom, which she brushed 
under her nose while she walked and gazed at the glistening surface of the 
river.
            Steeling from the shadows of his concealment Malger felt himself 
carried forward and strove to draw away.  In one hand was a slender length of 
polished steel that gleamed in the moonlight just as brightly as the river.  The 
nobly clad walker heard his approach and turned, the moonlight sketching her 
comely face in a beatific, ghostly light.  “No, no, no!  Gods, no!”  Seeing the 
approach of her death the woman’s eyes went wide and she thrust out her hands to 
ward off the coming attack.
            “Nocturna!  Release me of this foul darkness!”  Silver rose in the 
moonlight and flashed like a bolt of lightning from the sky, downward and across 
the woman’s outstretched hands.  A rush, almost orgasmic in its intensity, 
exploded triumphantly in Malger’s breast as the woman fell back with a shriek of 
horror and pain, her severed forearms fountaining blood like ink into the 
moonlit night. “Repudiate me, cast me down!  Turn your back on me, but do not 
torture me so!”
            Moving close to the woman, blood still surging with the heat of 
murder, he caught up the bodice of her gown with a strong hand to draw her 
close.  The young noblewoman’s eyes were wild with fear, pain, and the 
realization of her own death.  “The heir of Sutt sends his blessings.” He 
whispered softly, voice quavering with the intensity of his release, and then 
thrust her away.  The woman tripped upon the blood stained hem of her gown and 
toppled backwards.  Tumbling in a tangle of diaphanous white silk she slid down 
the steep bank and fell into the river with a splash.
            He stood there, nursing the orgasmic high of death delivered, and 
watched the panicked woman thrash about in the water.  The silver darkened with 
blood as her floundering became weaker with each passing, racing breath of her 
murderer.  Futilely the dying woman hauled herself onto the rocks at the river’s 
edge but that was her final act.  Within moments the loss of blood dragged her 
down into death.
            “You do not belong here.” A hissing voice whispered close at hand.  
It was the sound of death given breath and Malger lurched around in horror.  A 
shadowy form stood close at hand, the moonlight sketching its skeletal frame as 
a pool of dark against dark.  Only the eyes, burning and golden, offered some 
measure of color to the darkness.  “You have lost the path.”
            “Who are you?” he spat with the dreamer’s voice.  He tried to bring 
up the sword but only found a flute in his hands, it’s polished silver stained 
with the dead woman’s blood.  With a charred, skeletal hand the corpse reached 
up to grasp the flute and draw it down.  A circlet of bronze, burnt and stained, 
gleamed upon the dead thing’s wrist.
            “I am your guide.” The charred remnant hissed through a mouth drawn 
into a rictus leer by the heat which claimed its life.
            “Who are you?  Death?  Are you given to ferry me into the damnation 
of the hells?”
            The corpse burbled something, some name or title, in a language 
Malger could not understand, but he heard the words clearly, “I am your guide, I 
bring you to the proper path.”
            “Bedamn you, visage of death.  Take me, then, release me from this 
torture.”
            The corpse lifted a fire shrunken hand, more bone than flesh, “Take 
my hand, I will lead the way.”  Fearfully Malger found himself reaching out.  
His fingers closed over dry bone and crusty, burned flesh, and the silver gleam 
of the river faded away.  First at the edges of his vision, lastly the blood 
streaked glow close before him, and darkness closed about him utterly.
            Lurching up Malger flailed about and tumbled from his cot.  The cold 
stone of the floor met his elbows, and muzzle, with painful intensity as his 
upper body came down heavily and his legs remained on the cot.  Misanthe, the 
crazed vixen that had attached herself to him with the tenacity of a hungry 
tick, scrambled up from her perch at the end of the cot and jumped down.  
Quickly she shifted from her diminutive vulpine form to her full size and helped 
him back up onto the cot.
            “The dark dreams claimed you, master?” she asked diffidently, 
squatting before him and holding his hands.  Angrily Malger thrust her away and 
drew his legs up to his chest.  Hugging his arms about them he bowed his brow to 
his knees and shuddered.  Feeling a prick at his chest he reached down to tug it 
away but it clung about his neck.  Raising it up he found that it was his 
pendant of Nocturna, the points of the crescent moon had dug through his fur to 
poke at his flesh.  With a snarl he yanked it over his head and hurled it across 
the cell.  The pendant tinged against the stone and flashed briefly before 
coming to rest on the floor.
            “Malger!” he moaned, breathless and dizzy from the exertion.  “I am 
Malger! I am not your master!”  He looked up at the gleaming golden gaze of the 
vixen.  An atavistic shudder raced through his breast when he saw, for a moment, 
the charred skeletal monstrosity from his nightmares.  “I release you.  You are 
free, go, on pain of your own life.”
            Misanthe withdrew slightly with a backing of her tall triangular 
ears.  “You would kill me, mas – Malger?” she quailed fearfully.
            “No, not I.” He tightened his arms about his legs and huffed for 
breath.  His head swam and his nose ached painfully.  “An assassin has sought 
me.  She has found me.”  He bowed his head to his knees again and felt so bone 
weary he thought he might weep but his body was too weak to put for the effort.  
“She kills any who are close to me; a torture to prolong the suffering of my 
death.”
            “I am a fox, Malger.”  Tentatively she reached out to rest her 
fingertips upon his forearms.  He could not bring himself to push her away again 
for fear of fainting.  “Foxes are cunning.  They are adept at avoiding any who 
might hunt them.”
            “I don’t want to find your hands gifted to me, woman.” He growled 
plaintively, “Begone.  Find that caravan and travel to Metamor.  Leave me in 
peace.”
            “To seek your own death?” the vixen chuffed, tightening her grip on 
his forearms and prizing them from around his legs.  “I serve you, your life, 
not your ignominious death.”  Gently she eased his arms open and then shifted 
forward onto her knees to reach up and grasp his shoulders.  Pulling him to one 
side despite his weak resistance she helped him lie back down upon the cot.  
Reaching under the cot where her gown was folded she brought up a blade that 
shone silver in the wan moonlight.  Malger jerked back against the wall and his 
breath caught in his breast at the dichotomy of her blade and his recent 
nightmare.  Holding the blade up she clasped the hilt between both diminutive 
black hands.  “Show her to me and I will carve out her heart, for you.”
            “If she leaves you hands with which to carve.” Malger sighed, 
already feeling the weight of sleep hauling against him.  Misanthe drew herself 
up onto the cot and stretched out close against him on its narrow confines.  She 
tucked the dagger between them and pushed her muzzle under his chin.
            “Sleep, master.” She admonished gently, her voice muffled in the 
illusion masked fur of his throat.  “I will guard your dreams.  Give me your 
nightmares that I might slay them.”
            Malger felt a grief ridden giggle burble up from his breast, “Would 
that you could, you annoying vixen, would that you could.”
~~~
            “Malger,” Murikeer knelt beside the cot and shook his master’s 
shoulder.  The sun had not yet risen and the cell was dark but for the dim 
witchlight Murikeer summoned to hover just within the grate above.  Malger 
grumbled and twitched at the touch, his eyes blinking open in alarm.  After a 
moment he groaned and shifted to sit up, with Murikeer’s assistance, and lean 
back against the wall.  “Earl Tathim has sent a summons, the tribunal will begin 
shortly after dawn.”
            Rubbing his face with his hands Malger nodded and sighed, “Good.  
Let this be done.”
            “Where’s the fox?” Elvmere asked after a glance around the small 
chamber.  He had noticed that she was not under the cot when he put the tray 
brought to them by the Earl’s servants down on the stool.  Malger looked around 
briefly and then shrugged.
            “Was here last night, must’ve snuck out while I was asleep.”  
Drawing up his legs he crossed them on the cot and scratched at his chest.  His 
bruises, even the worst of them, were dim yellowish blotches on his illusory 
flesh.  Under that illusion his fur itched abominably. “How long before 
sunrise?”
            “A candlemark or so.  We brought water so that you might bathe and 
fresh clothing.  You need to be presentable, and right now you look like you’ve 
been wrestling in an abattoir.”
            Malger looked at his arms, still soiled by the old blood and mud of 
his fight.  He had been too hurt to bathe, or suffer to be bathed, when he first 
arrived.  In the time since he had been, and still was, simply too exhausted 
from poor sleep.  As it was he felt weak as a babe.  “What does it matter?  My 
guilt is plainly evident, the Earl will have no choice in his verdict.”
            Elvmere shot him a scowl from where he crouched preparing their 
food. “Don’t think that way, Malger.  We must see this through.  Why not simply 
reveal your noble rank?  Your caste is far superior to any that can be brought 
to bear, and those were nothing more than commoners.” He growled, “And brigands 
for that, as well.  They deserved justice, though I am still dismayed at the 
method of it.”
            “They deserved far worse, Elvmere.” Malger growled irritably, 
pulling at the stitches that Elvmere had not cut away the day before.  His 
injuries were, like his bruises, well on their way to being only pale scars.  
“Had I the time I would have killed them much more slowly… weeks at the very 
least.  A piece at a time.”
            “Malger!” Elvmere gasped, aghast.
            “This is not the time, both of you.” Murikeer chuffed.  Kneeling he 
pushed Malger’s hand out of the way to examine his stitches.  With a few deft 
plucks of his claws he cut the knots and carefully pulled them loose.
            “Gods!” Malger cursed and writhed in an effort to escape the sharp, 
plucking stings as each stitch was pulled loose from mostly healed flesh.  “Have 
some gods be damned care, Murikeer!  That hurts!”  His head spun dizzily and he 
had to desist fighting the stronger youth’s touch to brace his arms against the 
wall behind him.
            “To each a little pain.” The illusion masked skunk quipped.  “You’re 
the one who earned each scratch, master.  You’re healing far faster than I would 
have ever expected.”
            “For what little good it does.  Maybe it’s just another of Metamor’s 
little oddities.”
            “Mayhap.  Now, eat.  We’ll get you bathed and dressed after we break 
our fast.”  Flicking the last of the stitches from his claws Murikeer turned to 
take a trencher from Elvmere.  “Maybe your little pet will return while we 
prepare.”
            “If the girl has any sense she’s gone to rejoin the caravan.  I told 
you two that you are not safe with me already.”
            “Of this assassin you fear we have seen not a hint, Malger.  Perhaps 
she has found some wisdom as well.”
            “She got cursed trying to kill me, Muri.  Do you think her wrath 
would be so easily given up?” Malger found himself famished beyond measure and 
his stomach much more settled.  He set to the food presented to him with 
gluttonous abandon.
 
            At the base of the tower the three were met by six guards.  Two had 
been posted outside the chambers shared by Murikeer and Elvmere, while the other 
four were those assigned duty watching the only way into our out of the tower.  
They fell in around the trio and led them toward the main building, to the feast 
hall where the tribunal was going to be held.   The only outwardly visible 
change to the main courtyard was a fancily ornate carriage, sans the horses that 
had drawn it, sitting empty in the middle of the yard.  A couple of guards 
wearing colors different from the locals lounged on stools near the wagon.  
Beyond that nothing marked the day as any different from those that had come 
before.  Life went on, despite the gravity of the proceedings about to take 
place within the hall.
            When they entered their guards escorted them to one of the tables 
dominating the center of the long room several paces in front of the dais.  Most 
of the others, some dozen all told, had been pushed to the outer walls where a 
loose assemblage of familiar and unfamiliar faces watched while the trio settled 
at the central table.


      

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