Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

The harbor lamps reflected in the water. The end of the wall was in shadow, with some canoes upside down outside a small square building. Ata maneuvered us toward it past the last pontoon. Lightning whispered, “I see no guards, but have a care. The wall’s very near.”

She braked the oars. Lightning reached both arms over the side and fended us off. He pulled the boat around, long side to the wall. We all looked up to the top, two meters above. “I don’t see anyone.” He stood on the gunwale, palms on the flagstones, and pulled himself up. The boat bobbed and scraped the wall. His face appeared over the edge. “Pass me my bow.”

“Sh! You should let me go first,” I said, nettled.

“Stop hanging on to the painter, please.” Ata took the rope from me, and gave me a leg up. I scrabbled to the promenade, lay flat on my stomach and peered over. Ata picked the rope from the water, running it the boat’s length, then unwound it from the bow post. She threw it up to Lightning, who coiled it on the ground.

I gaped. “Oh. It wasn’t attached to anything?”

She sniggered. “No. I just needed some way of shutting you up.”

“You-”

“Hush!” said Lightning.

Ata arranged knotted-cord fenders around the boat’s hull, then she raised her hands to us. I turned my back, but Lightning took her hands and heaved her up, with a rasp of metal on stone. Her hair showed in a white flash under the hood of her black shawl-so different from the dazzling armor she wore in battle. She whispered, “I’ll hide by this depot. Lightning, follow Jant; he’s done this kind of thing before. Jant, for god’s sake stop sulking. Remember; return at five A.M., Starglass time. Good luck.”

I set off a few paces, found myself alone, turned to see Ata and Lightning still looking at each other. She gazed at him straight, and a whole spectrum of unsaid things passed between them. Then Lightning gave a little shake of his head, and stepped away to join me.

The façade of houses along the harbor was dangerously exposed because lamps on posts every fifty or so meters cast light on the paving. They were so bright I couldn’t see the stars. We had to dash across the yellow pools and pause in the very narrow slices of shadow.

I reached one of the puzzling black and white posts that had a wooden cross-arm and dangling wires. I crouched behind it. “Saker, we must keep silence from now on. I know you don’t like this and I don’t blame you. But, just once, please follow my lead.”

The Archer nodded. He carried his strung bow over his right shoulder, leaving his arms free. His mantle covered the quiver on his back, giving his shoulders a spiky crest, and was pleated into his belt. Nocks and fletchings of fifty arrows projected from the quiver on his left hip, crammed in so tightly they hardly rustled. He hunched awkwardly, trying to hide his broad frame. With an Eszai’s determination, he was trying to be a sneak. I said, “Let’s go.”

Oil lamps on the shopfronts lit the entire boulevard. But the grid-streets of Capharnaum were perfect for us assassins; we stole down the adjacent parallel street. I kept near the wall and walked rapidly, ducked into a doorway, waited for Lightning to catch up. The main street glowed on our left every side alley we passed. A statue on a plinth. Sculpin’s wine shop; Opah’s seafood; Ling and Zingel, grocers, the shutters closed. I ran across the road and continued up on the other side. Lightning piled into the shop doorway behind me. He was favoring his wound. I waved him back into shadow while I took a look around.

Time to change streets. I sped right across an intersection, away from the boulevard and left uphill again. The junctions were sharp right angles, since Trisians don’t have coaches. We heard a bell chime, the Senate’s patrol calling for the next watch. This street was darker-the buildings were all homes. We dashed past open colonnades and hugged house corners.

If Capharnaum was scruffier and a lot more disorganized, then slinking through it in the early hours would be just like Hacilith: hiding at a corner, giving the constables the slip. Doubling back to be rid of the rival Bowyers gang.

I beckoned the Archer close as we approached a lighted house and together we strode confidently past their front door. When people are at rest in their homes, a furtive movement can alert them, but they don’t look twice if they think you’re a watchman.

The houses were all of equal size and gave no cover; we walked swiftly. The boulevard’s light shone out of the side streets; we sneaked along close to the muraled walls. Behind me, Lightning trailed my movements soundlessly. I value faithfulness among friends. If you have not honored every childhood oath of allegiance to the gangs that changed every minute; adventuring among the rambling rose, the margins of ponds and darkened streets, you have not been true to yourself. I still have the Wheel scar on my shoulder. I have honored those intense oaths of friendship, and as a result I am still a child.

The streets came to an end in darkness at the foot of the Amarot crag. Only the lit boulevard continued, climbing it in a zigzag path. A group of Trisians was descending the ten-meter-wide pavement from the Amarot into town. They wore cloaks over loose white shirts and wide trousers; they carried lamps and weapons. If they saw us they would recognize our outlandish Fourlands clothes immediately. We would have to pretend to be two of Gio’s brigands, which would be the worst way to meet him. I urged Lightning back with a wave, and we lurked behind the corner of the last house.

The curfew meant that Gio’s men were not wandering in the town. Unfortunately they were all corralled on the mosaic at the top of the crag-nothing between us and them but the Senate House itself. We watched the patrol pass by two streets away and descend into Capharnaum.

Lightning said, “They’re going the other way.” I seized his cloak and pulled him back as the previous patrol emerged. They exchanged a few words in a low tone with their colleagues and proceeded up the boulevard. We waited for what seemed like hours until they were thumbnail-sized at the top of the outcrop.

I mouthed, “Our turn. Ready? Keep a good look around, your eyesight’s keener than mine. Remember that bloody Insect. We can’t see as well as it can scent us. It can certainly outpace you; it’s very well fed.”

For the first few hundred meters, the crag’s white boulders were conspicuous. Then we found ourselves stumbling up the escarpments, over the scrubland. I feared there was a scorpion under every rock. A woody smell rose from the damp thyme shrubs, and spiny bushes scraped my shins. Lightning struggled behind me kicking them.

At the lip of the crag there was no cover at all. The stony soil crunched under our boots and a gentle wind gusted down from the mountain above us. I lay flat on the hillside and after a dignified pause Lightning copied me. We listened. Gio’s men were obviously on the rum again. They all seemed to be gathered around the roasting fire, lounging and enjoying themselves. Good.

Lightning touched my arm and pointed behind us. Capharnaum was spread out below; the boulevard gleamed like an amber river. Lights shone in the quadrangles of villas, picking out tiny green gardens, lit red-tiled roofs that were otherwise gray, highlighted smudges of color on the frescoes. The harbor beacon blazed continually in a black strip, a single star under the lowest constellations. I found it hard to believe that, far beyond it, Stormy Petrel skulked up and down. Capharnaum was beautiful, but the curfew did not explain a sense of foreboding, an expectant hush. The town waited, but I doubted if any citizen knew why.

The tall outline of the Senate House blotted out the stars. Lightning and I glanced at each other. I tucked my coat back over my sword hilt; he nocked an arrow to string. We climbed as quietly as possible over the edge of the crag and onto its flat summit, into the Senate House’s shade, beside the first of twelve columns with square podia that were arrayed along its length. Wind blew the rebels’ cooking smoke over the roof ridge. Gio’s room was above and around the other side.