Andrew Hartley - Act of Will

“Go on, you idiot, go on!” she snarled, hobbling away from the swaying ax head. “Cut it down before you kill us both.”

She indicated the pine-boarded wall. I stared at her, wondering if she was serious, then heard the banging and shouting of soldiers downstairs. She made an impatient gesture as if she was dealing with a mentally subnormal baboon and I, suddenly angry at her and pretty much everyone else in the world, swung the ax hard into the wood.

It was faintly satisfying to see the splinters fly. I gritted my teeth and hacked away as the old woman behind me kicked my shins and told me to get a move on. For a moment I was tempted to swing the bloody thing at her, but that desire was replaced by surprise at seeing a middle-aged man on the other side of what was left of the wall, climbing hastily out of a tin bath and staring at me with terrified astonishment.

I turned to thank the crabby old bag but found she was already descending to answer the door and deflect the Empire guards, clearly the only people she hated enough to be of such dramatic assistance to anyone. The man on the other side of the wall backed off with disbelief in his eyes as I set to climbing through the hole. He flashed a look of alarm at the ax, so I dropped it and made pacifying noises that in no way helped the situation. For about the fiftieth time since this nightmare began I wished I wasn’t wearing a dress and a cascade of blond curls. There was only one way out of the room, and I took it, blundering past him onto a landing and down a staircase, while he stood gibbering and staring as before. You couldn’t really blame him: it’s not every day that a cross-dressing ax murderer smashes his way into your bathroom. Not waiting to examine my surroundings, I found the back door and unbolted it.

Probably the best thing to have done would have been to walk calmly and maybe put on a coat or something, but such composure was beyond me. I sprinted aimlessly out into the alley and down the first street I came to, heading as far away from my lodgings as I could and stopped.

Where was I supposed to go? Cresdon just wasn’t that big, and it was entirely walled, all gates heavily guarded. Everyone I knew worked at the Eagle, and those who might still have offered me protection were probably busy worrying about their own necks, possibly from the depths of some imperial dungeon. An unavoidable truth was settling like a rock in my gut, and though I had begun the day worried that I wouldn’t get my life on the stage, I was going to end it with a very different set of priorities. I had to get out of town, perhaps out of Empire territory altogether. I began to run.

I stopped running outside an inn.

It looked inviting: a board hung stiff in the still air proclaiming it, innocuously enough, the Silk Weaver’s Arms. I had passed it before but never been in, which was probably a plus. I was also thirsty and had detected a comforting smell of malt and hops from the door. I had run more this morning than in the last month. My heart seemed ready to burst, my muscles ached, and my thigh hurt and was still bleeding, however unimpressively. I had to calm down and think what I was going to do next. In short, I needed a beer.

It was dark and cool inside. A handful of quiet drinkers sat at deal tables and didn’t look up as I came in. I stood there sweating heavily and tried to look relaxed as I moved to the bar to order.

“Help you, er. miss?” said a big man in a stained leather apron. He looked like he could hump those beer barrels around on his back without losing his breath.

I scowled at him.

“Bitter,” I managed. “Pint.”

His eyes narrowed. I flashed a ladylike smile and straightened my wig.

“Right you are, my lady,” he said, still a little uncertainly, and began to pump a tankard full. I turned away, so that I wouldn’t die of thirst watching him.

“Two bits.”

“Cheers,” I said, pushing a couple of copper pieces across the bar at him.

“Good health, miss,” he said as I drank. “Looks like you need it.”

I gave a thin and lame-sounding laugh and fled into a dark corner by the fireplace.

At the next table a couple of old men were playing dominoes in absolute silence. I tried to think of nothing while my heartbeat and breathing returned to something like normal. After a couple of minutes like this I drained my glass and instantly wanted to find the toilet. Under the strain, I was amazed that my bladder had held out this long. Hell’s teeth, I was a fugitive from the Empire! How could I have been so stupid? I had to get out of this dress and out of town, and perhaps a good deal farther. It was a sickening thought. For all the tales of distant lands I’d acted in, I knew nothing about life outside Cresdon, and there was a part of me that found the idea of ven-turing beyond the city walls almost as terrifying as what the Empire would do to me if they caught me.

Almost. I had been accused of sedition, and then resisted arrest and made the Empire-a small part of it, at least-look silly. I would be proclaimed a rebel, and after that, all bets were off. There was only one punishment for rebels. Actually there were lots of punishments for rebels, many of them inventive and colorful. They just all ended up the same way.

Well, I thought, trying to put a better face on things, putting some mileage between me and Mrs. Pugh’s odious house with its cockroaches and its mice and its alarming breakfasts wouldn’t be all bad. And I’d never have to listen to Rufus’s bagpipe again. Bright side, see?

So, said a nasty voice in my head, that’s settled then. No problem. All you have to do is slip past the thousand armed guards who are currently looking for you specifically, and you’re golden.

Another beer seemed in order.

I got to my feet and looked toward the bar in time to see the street door kick open.

Soldiers. Three of them. I looked for a back door and started moving, wishing I had got rid of the dress and wig the moment I came in.

I made it across the room, staring ahead of me, waiting for an imperious demand to hold-it-right-there, and tried the door. It opened, but it didn’t get me outside, just into a corridor lined with more doors: guest rooms, no doubt. Then there was the sound of hurried boots in the barroom coming my way, and I knew that I had about fifteen seconds.

Bolting down the corridor, I tried one of the doors, but it was locked. The second, likewise. The third swung open and I found myself stuttering apologies and scattering pleas for help at three men and a girl.

They were perhaps as unlikely a group as Cresdon’s uncosmopolitan social milieu would ever see. The girl, who looked about my age, was fair, pale, and slim. I had some experience of looking at pretty girls, and there was no question that this one was a bit special. One of the men-actually, he couldn’t have been much older than the girl-was similarly pale of complexion, though his hair was short and brown and his eyes were green as a cat’s. The other two were of foreign stock, one black, the other of a swarthy olive complexion with dark hair and eyes. These last two had both drawn swords as I came in.

“Help!” I squeaked.

The men peered at me. I snatched my wig off and their eyes widened a little.

“Empire guards!” I blurted, glancing over my shoulder.

It was, apparently, the right thing to say.

For a split second they looked at me, then at each other. Then the girl pulled one of several large trunks from the corner. Her pale male counterpart opened it and wordlessly motioned me over.

Then they started arguing.

“Garnet, are you mad?” hissed the black man. “It could be a trap!”

“We can’t take that chance,” said the girl. “We have to trust her. Him. Whatever.”