Talking to Henri

Half an hour later, she had had a wash and a change of clothes and felt much better for it. The new items fit her reasonably well. The biggest problem had been finding a good pair of boots. Astra knew that most clothes that fit poorly are merely an annoyance, but that ill-fitting footwear can quickly become very painful. Eventually she had found some boots that seemed comfortable.

It was still an hour or so before dawn. "I expect our captain will want to talk to you later on," Henri told her, "but he won't be awake yet. If you come with me, I'll see if I can find you something to eat and drink. I don't suppose that our enemy gave you much."

As they began to walk across the compound towards the mess hut, Astra replied: "No, they didn't. A meal would be very welcome. So you're led by a captain, whereas your opponents have a general?"

Henri smiled. "They do tend to go in for rather grandiloquent titles."

"What will your captain want to talk to me about?"

"Well, according to our man in the enemy camp, they believed you to be spying for us. Rather ironic, as we already have someone right at the heart of their operation. We know - or at least are pretty sure - that you aren't working for us, so our captain will want to find out who you are working for."

"Why do I have to be working for anyone?"

"Oh, come off it. Why else would you have been up on the top of a hill twenty miles or more from the nearest settlement?"

Astra realised that, though her new friends might be far more civilised than her earlier captors, she could still have a big problem getting them to believe that she wasn't up to anything suspicious. She feared that telling them the truth, that she had come through a portal, would be met with nothing but derision. "Why would a spy be dressed in rags?" she asked, unable for the moment to think of any other counter-argument.

"I was always told that it was rude to answer a question with another question," Henri said, as they sat down at a table in the mess hut and he gestured for food to be sent over to them. Astra noticed that he seemed to have a considerable amount of authority in the camp. He went on: "Who are you, and what were you doing on that hill?"

1. Astra tells the truth, hoping that Henri will believe her.
2. Astra tries to come up with a plausible falsehood.

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