The broad window was a narrow slit—far too small for Lan’ara to hope of squeezing through. And the scene it showed was a far cry from the one she’d seen the first time she looked out of it. A dirty gray river with streaks of industrial waste flowed sluggishly by outside. Dead fish bobbed on its surface and the smell of raw sewage tainted the sullen wind that blew over the water.
Lan’ara recoiled from the awful view. What in the Seven Hells, as Need would have said, could have given her the impression that this dirty hovel was a shining palace or that the men who had apparently sold her to the madam of a whorehouse were kind and friendly? What was wrong with her eyes to make such mistakes?
Vaguely she remembered Need saying something about the yarrow root powder. Telling her to hold her nose… Had she somehow sniffed some of it, in all the confusion with Velda trying to get at the bag of tanska fruit?
I must have, Lan’ara thought dismally. How else could I have gotten things so wrong? I must have inhaled some of the drug and now it’s all worn off.
She only wished it had worn off sooner, before she’d allowed the two men to lead her to meet Mistress Bigaboo, who had now locked her away and was expecting her to “service” clients.
I can’t do that! Lan’ara thought, feeling sick. It wasn’t just that the idea of having sexual relations with strange men sickened her—it was the fact that the thought of being intimate with anyone but Need made her feel nauseous, she admitted to herself. Literally—her stomach was rolling at the very idea.
If she sends some man in for me to service, I’m going to be sick all over him, Lan’ara thought. Which would doubtless make the prospective client angry, but it was still better than allowing them to have sex with her. Ugh!
“I have to get out of here,” Lan’ara muttered to herself as she looked around the narrow cell which had formerly appeared to be a breezy bower. “I can’t stay here—I have to go find Need!”
But how was she going to manage that?
Lan’ara had no idea.
Thirty-Seven
Need found Velda, the runaway tubb-oh, tied up behind a rundown tavern with two strange males sleeping nearby. One was sprawled on the back steps of the drinking house, snoring. His head was tipped back, his mouth open to show black pegs where his teeth should have been. He had frizzy gray-brown curls around the bald spot at the center of his head. The other had a few wisps of dull blond hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed for years. He was actually inside the living tub, his legs thrown carelessly over the side and a bottle clutched in one hand.
The sensitive tubb-oh was clearly upset by this arrangement—it shivered and shook like an equine with a stinging fly on its back. But its front paws had been hobbled so it couldn’t move an inch, let alone get rid of the stranger inhabiting it.
Need saw at once that it was Velda—if there had been any question, the jewel colored tanska fruit were still rolling around in the bottom of the tubb-oh. And since Velda was here, Lan’ara was hopefully close by.
“Hey—wake up!” He shook the shoulder of the one sleeping in the tubb-oh roughly. “Get up! I want to ask you some questions!”
“Wha…?” The man opened bloodshot eyes, bleary from drink. “Wha choo want, Mister?” he slurred, squinting up at Need.
“The girl—I want the girl that was in this tubb-oh.” Need grabbed him by the front of his slick, greasy shirt and yanked the male up to glare at him. “And you’re going to tell me where she is or I’ll bash your brains out against the pavement there!” he added, nodding down at the cracked paving stones that lined the narrow road.
The male’s bleary eyes widened and he nearly choked.
“Wh-what girl? I ent seen no girl!” he gasped. “Why Slick and I found this tubb-oh wanderin’ around loose but there weren’t no girl in it!”
By the way his eyes were shifting all around, Need could tell he was lying. Wrapping one hand around the male’s dirty throat, he dragged him out of the tubb-oh and rapped his head smartly against the hard wooden side of the tavern.
“Oh!” the man clutched at his head. “That hurts!”
“Lies are painful,” Need advised him. “Tell me the truth this time or I’ll knock your brains out!”
Apparently his threat did the trick.
“Mistress Bigaboo has her, so she does!” he howled. “Please don’t kill me, kind sir!”
“I might not if you tell me where this Mistress Bigaboo is. Make it quick, now!” And he made as if to knock the male’s head against the pavement.
“I’ll tell, I’ll tell!” he howled so loudly that the other man, who had been snoring like a porcine, came awake with a snort and blinked his eyes owlishly at Need.