They let light through easily, and I could see shadows and the flickering of lantern light from those rooms that had them on the backdrops of the cloth.They let light through easily, and I could see shadows and the flickering of lantern light from those rooms that had them on the backdrops of the cloth. Some of the frames slid to allow passage. Through one Myr led me down a short hallway and into another room with such a frame. Inside, the room was large enough for three or four people to sleep in comfortably. She had a chest for her possessions. I had to step up to get in, though, because the floor of the bedroom was a wooden platform raised almost a foot and half off the floor. "I'm sure Cyl will get you one of your own. Now, wait here while I get you some bedding. It's sure to get colder yet." Myr left me alone for a moment, for the first time since my rescue at the hands of these women. I stopped to take stock of my situation, feeling disoriented. I was alive; I had people who seemed safe enough. I had a sense of comfort for once that was unlike any other. Myr returned with a bundle of cloth that hid her face from my view until she dropped it on the floor. "Fhew!" she sighed. "Heavy. And now we have to get the metal, too." "Metal?" I asked. "I'll show you," she assured me. "Come. I'll need help with this." I followed her into another room with more large chests. "There." She opened one chest and handed me some metallic slats, about three feet long and five inches wide, a little less than an inch thick. We made several trips of these back and forth to the bedroom. "What are these?" "Sleeping slats," she replied. She pointed to a spot of floor where wooden slats the same size as the metal ones we had carried were laid into the floor. With a knife she pried them loose and tossed them aside, fitting the metallic ones in one at a time. "Heat flows through metal much easier than it does through wood, see?" She said. "At night, before bed, we place coals on the floor underneath in these. |