Graeme Talboys - Stealing Into Winter

Still moving with caution, she made her way to the street and peered out. This part of Makamba seemed untouched by the events of the previous night. Had it not been for the group of pale, fair-haired soldiers standing restless at the junction with the main street, turning back people with carts and barrows, she would have been tempted to think it all a nightmare. That and the collection of bruises. And the filthy, torn prison clothes. And her empty belly grumbling about breakfast and one or two other missed meals.

First things first, she slipped into a busy kitchen and then back out, taking alternate bites at bread and cheese as she walked. The place had been in uproar, everyone worried about the events of the previous night and trying to get food onto the master’s table. She had noticed one or two bundles of possessions tucked into discreet corners, ready for a quick getaway.

Back in the alleyways, she explored until she found a clean tunic and a faded keffiyeh hanging with other washing. The tunic was still damp, but it went part way to making her look respectable. The heat generated by running from the dogs, let loose by the tunic’s irate owner, soon had it dry.

People rarely looked up above street level, unless it was to answer someone calling from a window. Jeniche took advantage of this, working her way up to the highest part of the city which was built along the top of a long ridge. She knew this roofscape well and could travel in such fashion all the way to the wealthy quarter, right to the top of the great cliff where the villas had views of the northern river valley and enjoyed the benefit of pleasant evening breezes.

It was remarkable how untouched the buildings seemed. There was no evidence of large-scale damage or fires and only one or two arrows, and those only in the streets closest to the Old City. And if you kept your back to the main docks, you couldn’t see the columns of oily smoke rising endlessly into the blue sky.

Now and then a smut of soot would drift past to remind her, but she managed to push the events of the last few days to the back of her mind and concentrate on her plans for the immediate future. And for a while she hunkered down in a warm, sheltered roof valley to finish her breakfast, thinking of her room, which bits of her stash to sell, where she could go if she left the city, Trag…

Firecracker sounds roused her from her dream of feasting. Someone shouted in the street below. Booted feet pounded past. Jeniche decided it was time to move.

As she reached the top of the hill, something began to unsettle her. She wasn’t being followed, she knew that for certain. Ducking behind a parapet, she crawled to the edge of the tiles and dropped feather light onto the roof of a carved, wooden balcony. Sitting up under the eaves, she waited. And waited. Now she definitely knew for certain. Just to be on the safe side, however, she climbed down to the narrow street below and went on her way through the morning crowds.

At ground level, her sense of unease continued to grow. She made her way between knots of gossiping men standing outside the cafés, groups of women haggling over vegetables, all of them casting frequent glances at the groups of soldiers that patrolled the streets, the carts filled with rubble. All very much business as usual; all so very different.

That’s when it hit her, and she could not believe it. Heart pounding, sick in her stomach, she pushed through the crowds, telling herself over and over she was mistaken, that it wasn’t true, that she just hadn’t been paying attention.

But it was true.

Stretched across the length of the devastated gardens were the shattered remains of the great square tower of the university. It was the absence of its familiar shape on the skyline that had unsettled her. It was the fate of Teague that sickened her.

Ignoring the shouts of workmen, she clambered up onto the vast, shifting pile of demolished stonework, and ran along the broken spine to where the high rooms and observatory had been. Dust hung thick in the still, hot air and she wrapped her recently acquired keffiyeh across the lower half of her face.

With impatient hands, and darting eyes, she searched the remains until she found carved stonework from the observatory and began pulling it away, heaving it down toward the ground. People began to gather at a safe distance, watching, wondering. One of the workmen made to climb up to help her, but his companion stopped him, knowing this was not yet the time.

On the point of collapse, her hands and feet bloody, Jeniche found Magistra Teague. The elderly woman lay, seemingly uninjured, in a cavity in the collapsed stonework, surrounded by her charts and books, her astrolabes, and the fractured and twisted parts of her wondrous telescope. The books were torn now, scattered all around the body, broken-backed and dust-caked.

Jeniche lowered herself into the remains of the observatory, squatting beside her friend in the tiny, dangerous space. Grit sifted down with a serpentine hiss. In the silence that followed, Jeniche reached out and took Teague’s stiff hand in hers. It was cold, never more able to point out the stars.

A dark spot appeared on the cover of a book that lay by her feet, the tear washing the dust away to reveal a rich green beneath, the symbol of an eight-pointed star embossed in silver. Wiping her eyes on a loose fold of cloth, Jeniche let go of Teague’s hand. She climbed up into the fierce daylight, stumbling down the loose stonework.

Strange visions blurred her senses, left a grey haze in front of her eyes like the tricksy gloom of twilight. Cities layered on cities, people struggling in the ruins, firecracker sounds. Someone guided her away from the remains of the tower with trembling hands and sat her beneath a tree with a jug of water, told her in a whisper to get off the streets and go home, left a faint odour of sour wine in his wake as he walked back to the fallen tower.

She drank greedily.

Mountainous, immovable, Trag squatted in the hot dust, forearms resting on the leather apron draped across his knees. He watched the large barrel with unblinking eyes, holding his breath. Sweat glistened on his face as it grew redder. When his ears began to sing, he gave up, leaned forward, and rapped on the rough staves with great, callused knuckles.

Water erupted, sparkling in the early morning sunshine. It fell with a smack, patterning the dust with dark shapes and splashing Trag’s face. Other than drawing a deep breath, he did not move.

‘What is it?’ asked Jeniche.

Trag gazed up at her with impassive eyes as she wiped cool water from her face. ‘Was worried,’ he said.

She sighed through a sad smile and inspected the cuts on her hands. They stung, blood still seeping from one. ‘I’m all right, Trag.’

‘No you’re not,’ he replied. ‘You disappeared.’ He spread his left hand, palm up, and with an effort counted off some fingers. ‘Three days. Four. Then you come back sad. With cuts. I can see. And grazes.’

‘And bruises,’ she added.

He frowned. ‘Liniment.’

‘I don’t want to smell like a horse.’

Trag frowned again. ‘Why not? Horses smell good. Anyway, if the boss finds you in the water barrel there’ll be trouble.’

He was right. She was banking on routine at the stables being disrupted by the night’s events, but there was no point in pushing her luck too far. It had been in very short supply these last few days and it was not something she was ever happy relying on.

Ignoring all the aches and pains, she hauled herself up, perched on the rim and swung her legs out. Water ran from her clothes and pooled on the baked dust of the yard before soaking away. She heard Trag sigh, but was too dispirited to tease him about it.