Selane's gig at the Broken Cart tavern had been good. She'd earned few silver pennies and more than a few compliments. Of course, some of those "compliments" were thinly veiled offers, but she'd carefully carried on the flirt without taking the bait. She wasn't in town to get involved in a short tryst with some farmer's son, much less the farmer himself! She was there to make a (mostly) honest living. She was quite certain that the merchant upon whom's lap she'd sat and sang was hoping for quite a bit more, and she'd definitely been hoping for a tip. So when none was forthcoming, it was obvious to her that in his drunken daze, he'd merely forgotten. Dipping into his purse for her silver (or two) was only the right and natural thing to do, and judging by the amount of coin she'd felt there, he wasn't like to soon miss them.
She'd gotten a bit nervous the last night, when a group of man-at-arms, bearing the livery of a local noble stopped in. The merchant whose pockets she'd picked had seemed to have gone to bed, but what if he'd noticed and called the guard? She was singing whilst playing on her mandolin, so unable to gracefully exit when they arrived. They made no move towards her though, instead taking over a table and yelling for meat and ale. She'd relaxed at first, but began to worry again as they began to get into their cups. A group of soldiers, once they were drunk, could easily get nasty, and she'd caught them casting glances her way. It was much to her relief when some sergeant had ordered them back to duty.
She'd been lucky enough to be asked to overnight two nights by the inn keep, which was a wonderful sign that her songs and voice, and ability to present herself and entertain the audience were coming along quite nicely. After that, she'd headed off down the road, to rejoin with her troupe, which at the moment consisted of four families, camped in an unclaimed field an hour or so walk from the town with the inn.
She topped the small hill that partially hid their camp, and stopped in stunned silence. The camp was gone! No wagons, no children, no one! After staring for long seconds, she hurried forward to investigate. The abandoned campsite didn't show any signs of a struggle at least. No dropped weapons or broken arrows. No blood, and she breathed a sigh of relief to the Lady for that much. But it hadn't been cleaned up noticeably either. Gypsies never left anything that might mark it as one of their campsites as a rule, even though they had certain ways of doing things like pens and lean-to's. Those had been left, not disassembled and scattered, which implied that the Troupe had left in a hurry.
With no better plan to go with, Selane began to clean up the site. She broke down the pens, and scattered the logs, disassembled the other temporary structures, and left nothing but fire rings that could have been created by any traveler.
That task done, and unwilling to stick around to find out what scared her Troupe away, she decided it was time to leave as well. The main road was too well traveled to tell which way the wagons had gone. She thought about heading back into town. The tavern was nice enough, and she wasn't likely to starve. That's when she remembered the soldiers that had come to the tavern. If they'd done something to chase off her Troupe, then staying there might not be the wisest plan.
Selane decided perhaps it was time to do something she'd always wanted to do. To go to the city, and see if streets near the castle were really painted gold, or if that was merely peasant rumor. After all, most of the people here had never gone more than a day's journey away in their whole lives.
