Stealing Into Winter

At the top of the alley, she looked back. The Tunduri had gone. Ah well, she thought, nothing there a good meal won’t help to fix. If only the rest of life was that easy.

‘Hello, Pennor.’

Pennor dropped the tray he was carrying, stumbled as he tried to avoid treading on the wooden platters and ended up sprawled on one of his benches. He heaved himself upright, clutching his chest. ‘You little bastard. What you want to creep up on someone like that for?’

Jeniche grinned and settled herself at a table, close to the kitchen and facing the main door.

‘What you doing here?’

‘It’s a café, Pennor. I want some food.’

‘Not that, you scruff. I heard you was arrested.’

‘Oh? And where did you hear that?’

Pennor frowned. ‘You’re not pinning that on me. You was dragged out of Dillick’s place by four city guards. Made a right mess of his place.’ He smiled. ‘Word gets round quick.’

‘That much is true. I hadn’t got my spoon in the bowl before they arrived. Who could get to them that quickly, eh?’

‘No good asking me,’ said Pennor, edging past Jeniche into the kitchen doorway. ‘You want to be talking to Dillick.’

‘I will be, don’t you worry. But I want to eat first. Without fear of interruption.’ She looked up at Pennor. He gave a sickly smile in return.

‘You can trust me.’

‘I know. Because I know too much about you.’

‘What would you like to eat?’ he asked. ‘On the house.’

She paid when she left, not wanting to be in debt to Pennor. Besides, it was worth it. He might be all sorts of low life, but Pennor could cook and he kept a clean kitchen.

Before heading for Dillick’s tavern, Jeniche made a detour into the maze of alleys close to the top of the Old City grandly known as the Jeweller’s Quarter. It was a ramshackle place with dozens of small workshops and safe rooms crowded into the back ways behind the classier shops where jewellery and other items of metalwork were sold.

The whitesmiths shared it with locksmiths and sword smiths and all manner of artisans who spent their days hunched over their work, making the most of the natural light. The sound of hammers, saws, and files rang over the wheeze of bellows and the conversation and catcalls of the boys who worked them.

Jeniche had been in two minds about venturing so close to the Old City, but there seemed little evidence there of the invading forces. Thin trails of smoke still rose from the direction of the docks, occasional squads of pale-faced, sweating men in dark uniforms trotted by on business of their own. And that was it.

She stopped outside one workshop and waited for the crouched figure of Feldar to finish. Long, thin fingers worked with delicate instruments, plaiting gold wire. When the work was done the jeweller looked up. He squinted, refocusing his eyes.

‘Well, this is a surprise.’

‘You’d heard as well, I take it.’

A grey, bushy eyebrow was raised. ‘Aren’t you taking a risk?’

‘I think the city guard is otherwise occupied, just now.’

‘Hmmm.’ Feldar lifted the board on which he had been working from his knees and put it to one side. He unfolded his long, thin frame; joints cracked and Jeniche winced at the sound.

They went through into the dark, leaving Feldar’s tools and precious metals where they lay. Jeniche had been unable to believe it when she first wandered through the alleys, all that wealth for the taking. And then she had seen what happened to someone who tried, noticing only then that the workshops at the end of the alleys all belonged to blacksmiths.

The would-be thief had been carried back to the whitesmith’s workshop where he returned the silver ingot he had tried to run away with. And then his fingers had been laid one by one on an anvil and broken with the blade end of a hammer. Jeniche had been standing outside Feldar’s workshop at the time, watching open mouthed and feeling more than a little queasy. There but for the grace of fate…

‘Fool,’ Feldar had said. ‘Where,’ he had added with a wink to Jeniche, ‘did he think he was going to sell that silver apart from back to the man he had just stolen it from?’ It had been the beginning of a long, friendly, working relationship, not least because Feldar knew Jeniche had seen what happened if you stepped out of line.

In the cool interior, they sat in comfortable chairs behind a curtain well away from prying eyes and savoured the lemonade Feldar’s apprentice brought.

‘Have you had any trouble here?’ asked Jeniche.

Feldar shook his head. ‘I don’t understand it. Everyone is edgy, but apart from a few skirmishes, it all seems to…’ His words faltered and he stared at his hands folded in his lap.

‘Has the city fallen to the enemy?’

‘The Occassans.’

‘Occassans? Are you sure?’

Feldar shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. No one seems to know. There are plenty of rumours but not many hard facts. And few of those I trust. Occassus is so distant it barely seems credible. Tales of the Occassans have always seemed like the distant growl of thunder from a dark horizon.’ He paused for a moment, thinking. ‘The Citadel is badly damaged. That’s certain. Some of the warehouses on the docks are badly burned. That too is certain. And there are, according to some who are in a position to know, a thousand more soldiers in barges on the river.’ He sighed. ‘I just hope the young hotheads in the Old City don’t start thinking they can fight back. Not against these new weapons.’

Jeniche leaned forward. ‘What new weapons?’

‘Have you not seen?’

‘No. It was… chaotic down there last night. And I’ve not seen any soldiers up close today.’

‘You must have heard them, though. That firecracker sound?’

‘I thought that was… well… firecrackers.’

‘No. One of the sword smiths on Blade Alley has put up a bounty, a handsome sum as well, to be paid to anyone who brings him one of these… whatever they are. Moskets, they call them. I dare say if they get hold of one they will be making them here.’ He sighed again. ‘And then we will see real bloodshed.’ Feldar looked at Jeniche, searching her face. ‘You’ll stay clear of all that, won’t you?’

‘You needn’t worry about me. I’m not a fighter. I never have been. And all I want at the moment is some cash.’

‘Hmmm. Business. Very well.’

Feldar took a black cloth from his sleeve and laid it on the low table between them, smoothing out the creases. Jeniche waited until he had finished and then unlaced the jeweller’s belt beneath her tunic. She removed the three rings, the bracelet, and the small good luck charm, placing them on the cloth. After the briefest hesitation, she left the amulet in the belt which she retied round her waist.

‘It’s not much,’ she said, straightening her tunic, ‘but I thought the metal might be of use.’

He picked up each item and held it where he could see it clearly. ‘The bracelet is brass. You might get a few sous for it in one of the chandlers’ workshops. I can’t do anything with that charm, either, although if you find the right person you might convince them it’s pre-Evanescence. Fools will always pay over the odds for that.’

‘And the rings?’

‘Times are hard.’

Jeniche grinned. ‘Doesn’t work with me.’

Feldar grinned back. ‘That one is good, fine gold. Five crowns. The other two are plated silver. Three crowns for them.’

Jeniche was disappointed. She had been hoping for ten, but Feldar always gave her a good price. She nodded and picked up the bracelet and the charm. The smith folded the cloth over the rings and it disappeared into a pocket inside his work jacket. Jeniche knew the stones would be out of their fittings and the metal in a crucible before she reached the end of the street.

Eight crowns appeared on the table and Jeniche scooped them up. ‘Thanks.’

‘Hmmm. You be careful. Once the city guard is back on the streets, they’ll be looking for you.’

Jeniche sighed. ‘I don’t plan on being caught.’

‘What you plan and what happens…’ Feldar shrugged.

In the workshop, the bellows creaked and the charcoal fire beneath the crucible gave a soft roar. Jeniche left Feldar and his apprentice to their work and ambled along the alley trying to sort out her thoughts, edging round her grief for Teague. She peered into busy workshops, sold the bracelet, stopped to admire merchandise, bought a new knife to replace the one confiscated when she had been arrested, watched a party of Tunduri pilgrims in their green robes and wondered how people of the high mountains coped with the heat, tried to recall any hard facts about Occassus and failed.

When she reached Dillick’s tavern and went down the steps into the kitchen, the place was quiet, just as she had planned. She went on tiptoe past the two skivvies who were curled up and fast asleep in the corner by the pantry. It was their one respite in a long day’s work and Jeniche had no wish to deprive the two young women of the bliss of sleep.

The door to the servery was by the bar. Jeniche helped herself to some small beer from a keg and sat in a corner near the main door to wait. It was dark with all the shutters closed but there was enough light to see that there were several new tables and benches. It had been a short, scrappy brawl. At least Dillick had suffered as well, where it would hurt him most. He had probably had to spend the best part of his tip-off money on new furniture.

When Dillick’s pale face finally appeared in the gloom, Jeniche had long finished the drink, carved an elaborate design into the wood of one of the new tables with her knife, and begun to doze. He moved his oleaginous bulk between the tables, feeling his way as he went, eyes still dazzled by the afternoon sun. Even as a shadowy figure in the shuttered room, he managed to convey that mixture of servility and slyness that Jeniche so disliked.

‘Don’t open them just yet,’ she said quietly as he reached up to the nearest shutter catch.

Dillick froze. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Someone who is curious to know how the city guard can get here so quickly after one of your clients sits down to eat.’

The pale moon of Dillick’s face loomed toward her. Jeniche was reminded of a tulik worm, strange and poisonous creatures of the deep desert that come to the surface only on the night of a dark moon.

‘Is that you, Jeniche?’ The voice was pitched high with nerves.

‘Well?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ It was feeble even by Dillick’s standard.

‘Someone told them I was here.’

‘Could have been anyone.’ The face moved slowly away as Dillick backed toward the bar, knocking against a table and upsetting a bench.

Moving with long-practised silence, Jeniche crossed the room and stood beside him. ‘But it wasn’t.’

She heard a sharp intake of breath. It may have been surprise at her voice so close. It was more likely the cold, sharp point of her knife pricking the folds of flesh on his neck.

‘Anyone would know you,’ he said. ‘Anyone could have—’

She pushed the knife just a little harder.

‘Anyone?’

‘A lad like you. Out of the desert. Easily recognized.’

‘What makes you think I’m out of the desert?’ she asked, annoyed by the lazy assumption.

‘Skin that dark. Stands to reason.’

‘Not to me, Dillick. There’s more than just desert to the north of Makamba. A lot more.’

Jeniche pushed away the memories, saw Dillick frowning in the gloom. His was a small world. He’d probably never even left the city. Anything beyond the view from the city gates was beyond his comprehension.

Suddenly angry, Jeniche stepped back, keeping the point of the knife to Dillick’s neck.

‘There’s no need to—’ He cut off his protest with another sharp intake of breath as she pushed a little harder.

‘Just remember, Dillick,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘There isn’t a place I can’t escape from. There isn’t a place I can’t get into. There is nowhere you would be safe if I ever found out you were lying; if I ever found out you had gone running to the city guard after this little conversation.’

Chapter Five

Small angular pools appeared first, fed from the corners and doorways from which they had never quite disappeared. They grew at a steady pace, unseen or disregarded. Sharp-edged and creeping, they moved out of the crevices and cracks, the sanctuary of awnings and cellar stairwells, onto the dusty ground of the alleys, streets and public squares. By the time Jeniche slipped out of Dillick’s place, the smaller pools of shadow were beginning to join together. It was the signal for the city to wake from its afternoon slumber.

A group of Tunduri monks and nuns stood directly outside the front entrance in the small space where there were benches for customers to sit. Jeniche began to push her way through, moving indecisive individuals firmly to one side or the other. She was almost clear when something snagged her tunic. Turning to free it from whatever nail or bit of rough timber she supposed it had caught on, she was taken aback to see the hand of a child gripping the cloth. The same smiling child she had encountered before.

‘I’m glad we met again,’ he said in impeccable Makamban. ‘I wanted to thank you.’

Jeniche was conscious that her mouth was open in surprise.

‘For the basket of food,’ added the young monk.

‘Food?’ She realized how stupid she sounded. ‘In the basket,’ she went on lamely.

The young monk smiled.

Jeniche looked away, not wanting to be caught by that look again and noticed that every Tunduri eye was fixed on her. Being the centre of attention was anathema. And the circle was growing. The Tunduri were attracting the attention of curious passers-by who were dawdling half-awake in the street. This, in turn, attracted the attention of soldiers who were fully awake. She had no thought they might have a particular interest in her, she was simply allergic to men in uniform, especially those that sauntered in her direction in that casual way that meant trouble.

‘It was kind of you.’

The child’s voice broke into her momentary distraction. ‘I have to go,’ she said, edging away.

‘You are from the north?’

She pulled her tunic from the boy’s grip. The question annoyed her as much as the assumption she knew the desert. Both things were actually true, but she wanted them to remain firmly in her past where they belonged.

Three steps took her through the group of Tunduri, which was considerably smaller than it had first seemed. A fourth let her join the slow current of pedestrian traffic that carried her away from the terrifying smile, the soporific presence of the Tunduri, the cold and focused eyes of the soldiers.

Shopkeepers were re-opening their shutters and setting out their wares in the thin slivers of shade that had washed up against their shop fronts. The markets were coming back to life, stall-holders emerging from beneath their trestle tables, yawning as they kicked their apprentices awake and folded the dust sheets that had protected their wares from the elements and felonious hands. As Jeniche reached the end of the street, she could hear Dillick swearing at the Tunduri.

More people were venturing out. Sleepy servants and listless children, ambling dogs and yet more pilgrims all getting in the way of the ox-drawn work carts that were once more trundling back and forth carrying rubble, bricks, and timber. A haze of dust began to fill the air and the water sellers and lemonade stalls began to do a brisk trade.

All of which suited Jeniche. Because there were soldiers everywhere. And with life getting back to something resembling normal she could fade into the free-for-all. At least the streets seemed to be clear of the city guard. Not that she was going to make that mistake again.

Bread was her first priority. When she arrived at the bakery, Bolmit, normally the most placid of men, was arguing with one of his regular customers. Jeniche stood in the street, bemused. It wasn’t until two soldiers stepped from the alley that ran alongside the bakery that she fished in her pocket to find some of the loose change that had, until recently, been in a box behind Dillick’s bar and approached the shop.

Close to, closer than she wanted, she could see the soldiers were seasoned professionals. Lean, wary, with a quiet confidence in their abilities. They had, she also noticed, discarded their dark blue tunics for something lighter and were wearing keffiyehs as well. Whether they were trying to cope with the heat or blend in and make themselves less obvious targets was anyone’s guess.

She managed to get the attention of Bolmit, disappointed that his good-looking son, Wedol, wasn’t serving. Once she had paid for her bread, she wandered away from the shop and crossed the street into some shade. She felt lost. Everything was out of sorts and the usual rhythm of the streets had faltered. People were still out as usual, errands had to be run, provisions bought, gossip exchanged. There was, however, an air of distraction that she shared, understandable given the circumstances. It was as if people weren’t sure how to behave. Unlike some, though, Jeniche didn’t think it a good idea to stand and stare at the pale-skinned Occassans, if that’s what they were. Every time someone did, she noticed, every time a group began to gather, more soldiers would appear, threatening and bullying until the curious and sociable dispersed with grumbles and resentment. If nothing else, it confirmed to Jeniche that she was in for a thin time.

Dispirited, she ran her eyes over a display of fruit, wondering about the weapons these soldiers carried. Feldar had mentioned the bounty a sword smith had put up for the capture of one. She couldn’t understand why. They looked a bit like long crossbows without the bow and string, nothing more than elaborate clubs. Not very practical.

She walked along the stall, only half seeing the produce. In the end, she bought some peaches and was about to move on in search of some goat’s cheese when she stopped in her tracks, heart beating hard.

Crouched in the shadow of the fruit display was a member of the city guard. The man wasn’t in uniform but she knew. He looked up at her for a long moment and then flicked his head to one side to get her to move on.

Letting out a breath of relief, she said with a quiet voice, ‘Your boots are a giveaway.’

The man, trying to look round her legs, flicked a glance up at her and frowned. She just hoped he wasn’t one of the ones who had arrested her. In the melee, she hadn’t paid much attention to what any of them looked like. Her fists had made contact a few times before a rope went round her wrists, and this guard had bruises. But they could have come from anywhere.

‘Just get out of the way.’

‘If they see those boots, they’ll know what you are.’

He looked down at them and then back at Jeniche. It was clear he was trying to decide if it was a con, but in the end he pulled them off.

‘Someone here will have a sack you can put them in. Trade them for sandals.’

After that, she saw several other watchers, tucked away in shady spots. One of them was talking with a small boy who ran off and Jeniche saw him pulling his boots off. She smiled, but it was half-hearted. There had been deaths already. More were sure to follow. Perhaps it was time to leave the city. First, though, she needed some sleep.

Deep shadow and a light breeze from the wide river valley to the south of the city filtering through the sandalwood screen made the balcony comfortable. The prospect, however, was not. Across the wide street, lined up against a long wall in full sunlight, were fourteen men and six boys. Two of the men had been beaten and blood had dried hard on their swollen faces. The seventh boy had fainted and lay in the dust. The only comfort to be drawn was that there should have been fifteen men.

I hope you’re not somewhere doing something foolish, she thought. Willed it. Though where Trag would go, she had no idea. The stables across the road were his work, his home, his whole world.

Jeniche moved with cautious steps, shifting her perspective. The group of soldiers guarding the stable staff had not moved, but others were now emerging from the buildings. They crossed the main courtyard and appeared in the grand gateway. She leaned forward and caught sight of the tops of the heads of two just below her. A board creaked beneath her shifting weight.

The voices below stopped their murmur. Not waiting to see what was happening, Jeniche launched herself through the door, made a forward roll that would add more bruises to her collection and was up the stairs to the roof. She could hear booted feet clattering up behind her.

Grabbing her sack of provisions as she passed, she crossed the flat roof, jumped the narrow alley to the next roof and was up and over the shallow pitch of pantiles with nimble steps, skirting a garden courtyard before dropping onto an outhouse roof and down to the packed earth of a narrow service alley. She doubted anyone had seen her, but she didn’t stop moving until tiredness forced her to rest in the shade behind an old, public fountain.

‘Are you all right, lad?’

She looked up, startled. A dishevelled man smelling of sweat and cheap alcohol stood a few steps away, watching her. He looked familiar in a vague kind of way, but she could not place him and did not much care. Two friends were gone and she had nowhere to sleep. All on top of being caught for the first time in her life. It really was time to be leaving the city.

‘You lost?’ continued the man. ‘You don’t look the type who gets lost.’ He shrugged.

‘I’m… just a bit tired,’ she said, not really wanting to get into a conversation, especially with someone she didn’t know.

The man nodded and lifted a stone bottle to his lips. ‘Don’t suppose you got much sleep last night.’

He waved his free hand in aimless circles and wandered away with the careful steps of someone perpetually drunk, raising the bottle to his lips again as he went. Jeniche watched him go until he was out of sight, her eyes burning, her throat dry, and her head full of questions.

There were no answers where she went looking, but there was a bed in the shade of a rooftop awning. However, after that first night of restless, dark, dream-haunted sleep, she moved down into the deserted house.

Shuttered and barred against the world, the building felt as if it was in mourning. A deep sadness permeated the rooms. Jeniche feared it meant yet another death. She touched little, despite the worth of some of the items. This was the house of a friend. And of all the friends she had made, the strangest and the best.

She made up a small bed for herself in an upstairs room near the stairs to the roof. A straw mattress from the kitchen and spare sheets from a linen press, that was all she used. That and cool water drawn from the well for bathing before she ventured out at night for food, searching the streets and taverns, listening to the talk.

And every time she slept, her dreams of being trapped, of sour breath and rough, grasping hands, drove her to a restlessness that woke her. Sick with weariness and ever more uncertain about the life she had made for herself in Makamba, she would make her way up to the roof terrace and sit beneath the awning to listen to the city, wondering whether the dried blood she had found up there was that of the child.

A week passed and the mood in the city turned from bemusement to discontent and then to open anger. Firecracker sounds sparkled in the night, most often from the direction of the Old City, but sometimes up on the high ridge and over towards the wealthier quarters. Shouts and the sound of running feet echoed in the hot dark.

On that seventh day, risking a daylight foray, she found one of the stable hands.

‘Endek?’

His hand half way toward a piece of fruit on a market stall, he looked round, searching the crowds nearby. Jeniche flipped a sou at the stallholder and picked up the slice of melon.