Stealing Into Winter. Graeme Talboys K.
all afternoon and Jeniche didn’t have a chance to ask any more, so pushed the thought to one side. Dillick must have upset a good few people in his time. He was that sort of person.
With a full belly, rested legs, and a half workable plan for getting out of the city with her treasures intact, Jeniche wandered back toward the market. The place seemed normal. The presence of foreign soldiers was obvious, but business had returned to its usual, noisy level. People were gossiping. Even some of the jugglers and other entertainers were putting on a show.
Making the best of her mood, she moved toward the western end of the market, where it gave on to the gardens at the front of the university. It was time to say goodbye, here and elsewhere.
The road narrowed at this end and although there were fewer stalls, they catered to the large number of students by offering cheaper produce. The crowds pressed in around her. It was hard to believe so many people had left the city. The rest must be right here, she decided, determined to keep things as normal as they could. For all that, there were signs of wear and tear, signs of the invasion. Not least the group of Tunduri. If it weren’t for the fact that everywhere you went, there seemed to be little knots of them drifting, begging, still finding time to stand and stare, she might start to believe they were following her round the city. She shrugged, trembling a little at the sight beyond the last of the stalls.
Rubble still lay across the gardens where the tower had been felled during the initial assault on the city. Most of it was gone, deep cart tracks cutting through the grass and flower beds kept watered by the university’s deep wells. But a long spine of grey stone remained, like the twisted vertebra of a stripped carcass.
Oblivious to the noise and bustle around her, she watched a team of labourers loading a cart, seeing the tower as she best remembered it, stretching up to the starry sky. When she was not thieving or producing coins from Shooly’s ear, she would sit atop the tower in Teague’s study.
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