Graeme Talboys - Stealing Into Winter

She had first climbed it simply because it was a challenge, the tallest building in Makamba. Teague, who had a keen ear, had waited until Jeniche climbed into her observatory, remarked that the stairs were easier, winked at Jeniche, and gone back to peering through her telescope. Nothing more was said, but Jeniche, once she got over the shock of finding someone sitting in the dark, was fascinated by what she saw. Thereafter, whenever she saw the dim, red glow of Teague’s lamp in the observatory windows, she would climb up and join her.

The astronomer had been an elegant woman, much older than Jeniche, who clearly enjoyed the companionship. They had talked most often about the night sky. Jeniche told of using the stars to navigate in the desert. Teague told of what she had learned of the moon, of the stars and planets, of the wandering lights that sometimes flared across the sky and disappeared.

Jeniche had felt a deep link with Teague, drawn by her sense of rootedness and purpose. She sometimes wondered if, when it was time to give up thieving, a life of learning would suit her. Now she would probably never know.

Wrapped in melancholy, several moments passed between the eruption of noise and Jeniche noticing. She spun round to see the market in chaos. Angry firecracker sounds filled the space and echoed in the hot afternoon. Shards of mud brick spat into the air from the top of a nearby building. She ducked, instinctively, conscious of people hurrying along the rooftop.

All around the market, people were running and diving for cover. Women dragged children, letting their shopping spill to the ground as they sought out doorways and alleys. Men ran and ducked and fell. Horses screamed, rearing in panic, bolting through the fast thinning crowd. Bullets hit walls and tore through flimsy stalls in search of flesh. Several people already lay in the hot dust, bleeding their lives away, calling, screaming, pleading.

In the confusion, Jeniche lay beside a collapsed stall, half buried in melons. One exploded close to her head and she flinched, terrified. She caught a glimpse of a young girl with rose-gold hair in strange clothes standing in the open space, blinked melon from her eyes to find she had gone. Instead a young nun stood there in her moss green robes, petrified, the whites of her eyes showing all the way round.

Something caught the back of Jeniche’s left calf as she ran, hot and painful. She lost her footing, tumbling forward, rolling, and coming back onto her feet again in time to knock the nun flat to the ground. Shooting raged above them. The soldiers had found proper shelter and aimed at the rooftop assassins who also seemed to have moskets.

Jeniche didn’t care. She grabbed a handful of green robe and began to drag the nun with desperate energy. They scrambled across the killing ground and fetched up with a crash against a trestle. Jeniche pushed the nun into the shadow beneath the stall, rolled in after her and then pulled her toward the entrance of a narrow street.

The nun had other ideas, tugging Jeniche towards a café. The sound of running feet was close behind them. Jeniche caught a glimpse of another familiar face, grinning in the mayhem, and then heard a great crash. She didn’t turn, but followed the nun and headed for the low wall of the café courtyard.

In a cloud of dust, they crashed over the wall and lay in the cover of the thick mud bricks, drawing painful breaths. The nun began to speak, was cut short as a concentrated burst of fire had them scuttling on hands and knees for the doorway to the café. They pushed into the dim interior as tables splintered behind them and dust rained down.

‘How many more times? The answer is “No”. It will always be that. So please stop asking.’

She lifted the torch above her head in the hope of seeing more. All it did was cast longer shadows into the tunnel, pick out doorways and arched entrances in tantalizing flickers, and wring tears from her eyes as oily smoke swirled at the sudden movement.

‘But you would be perfect.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘No.’

‘We need a guide who can get us across the desert.’

‘Why does everyone think I know anything about the desert?’

She turned at the silence, the torch flame roaring.

‘What?’

‘But, surely…’

‘No. No. No. Just because I have darker skin than most people in Makamba—’

‘Cinnamon.’

‘What?’

‘It’s the colour of cinnamon.’

She looked at the boy, wondering if it was deliberate. It was almost like there were two people in there. A child and an adult. She shook her head.

‘The colour of my skin does not mean I’m from the north or that I was born any closer to the desert than where you are standing right now.’

The boy looked round the gloomy passage.

‘Are you not from Antar?’ he asked.

‘No. Yes. How could you possibly know that? And what business is it of yours if I am?’

‘I’m sorry.’

The Tunduri shuffled their feet, not understanding much beyond the tone of her voice, knowing full well she had told them to stay in the room. She walked back through them, irritated by their presence, annoyed at having to abandon her exploration again, despite the fact she knew it was a pointless exercise. Their footsteps echoed after hers as they climbed the sloping floor of the rough-hewn passage and mounted the steps.

At the top, she dropped the torch on the ground and kicked sand over it, fading smoke twisting its way to the rocky roof. The draught of passing robes dispersed it, the old monk ambling along in the rear, singing to himself as he went. Darkness took back the tunnels and settled like a monstrous, watchful cat.

A bright shaft of light, solid and hot, cut at an angle through the gloom of the semi-basement room that Jeniche had found for them. It lay somewhere beneath the university, close to the main courtyard garden. Smaller rooms contained tools, sacks, old bits of furniture, shelves of dusty pots and dried tubers. This, with its dusty bed and other rickety furniture, had looked unused.

The six monks and two nuns followed Jeniche inside and stood in hesitant fashion as she sat on one of the benches from which they had cleared piles of old sacks. It wobbled and she kicked back at the nearest leg, hurting her heel.

‘Can’t you sit down?’ she said.

The youngest one pushed through. ‘Forgive them. They are confused. A little lost.’

‘Why do they keep following me?’

The boy frowned. ‘Do they?’

Jeniche resisted the urge to scream. It had been like this for days.

The boy said something in Tunduri and the rest drifted to the edges of the room and sat in shadow, their backs to the walls. Jeniche felt like she could breathe again. For a moment, she shut them out of her thoughts and drew up her left trouser leg. The cloth at the back was torn and bloody from where her calf had been grazed by a mosket ball. With care she unwrapped the strip of linen that had been used to bind a poultice to the shallow cut. Twisting her leg in the shaft of sunlight, she inspected the wound as best she could. Although it still stung and there was some bruising, it did not seem to be infected.

One of the monks placed a bowl of water beside her and handed her a fresh strip of linen torn from the sheet she had acquired for the purpose. She tore it in two and used one piece to bathe the back of her leg before binding it up again. The nun she had pulled from the battle would have done it if she had let her, but she was determined not to get close, form any sort of bond.

When she had finished she found the young monk was still watching her.

‘We walked here,’ he said. ‘We could walk back. With a guide.’