Stealing Into Winter. Graeme Talboys K.

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СКАЧАТЬ looked at her for a long time. Some people found it unnerving. ‘That’s a sad thing,’ he said, having worked it out.

      Jeniche nodded again, not daring to speak, then turned and continued to climb. She pushed a rough wooden panel to one side, stepped through, and closed the secret door. Steep, makeshift steps led up into shadow.

      It was already hot in the irregular space beneath the roof she had made her home. A slight breeze squeezed through a series of wooden slats, but it would not be enough if she wanted to rest in comfort during the day. It wasn’t much of a place to call home, but it did have the virtue of being safe and of having several ways in and out.

      She stripped off her sodden clothes, squeezing them into a bucket before hanging them over a length of thin rope. At least they would soon be dry.

      The rough wool of the blanket scratched her flesh as she dried herself and inspected the damage. And then she laid herself down on the narrow bed, curled up, and cried. Deep sobs, silent out of long habit, shook her body and the tears flowed until she dropped into an exhausted sleep.

      When she woke, aching and stiff, there was a light cotton sheet covering her scrawny body and a pillow beneath her head. On the plank that served as a table, she could see a stone flask and a basket covered by a cloth. Trag had squeezed himself through the secret door and up the narrow stairway. He really was an old hen. She smiled for the first time in days.

      Seated on a stool with the sheet draped loosely round her, she ate from the basket. Bread. Cheese. Fruit. The water in the jug was tepid, but welcome. And as she ate, she sorted the contents of her stash. A handful of coins that would keep her fed for a few more days. Three rings. A bracelet of dubious quality. A carved statuette worn with age and much handling, perhaps once a good luck charm. Which brought her to the amulet.

      It was like nothing she had seen before. Wiping her hands on her tunic, she lifted it and looked at it again. The chain, if you could call it that, looked like a solid silver wire, except it was flexible as water. There was no clasp, just a continuous loop barely large enough to go over her head, passing through a link on the amulet itself.

      The flattened red-gold teardrop was the same size as the top joint of her thumb. It seemed to glow, even in the dim recess in which she sat; the incised markings on one face as crisp as if they had just been cut. It turned as Jeniche held it up and she shook her head at the perfection of its shape. And what a parcel of trouble it had turned out to be.

      There had been nothing in the villa. That is, nothing she could steal. Days of watching and planning ways in and out, of calculating the internal layout; nights spent watching the movements of the inhabitants. Waiting then until the main part of the Tunduri festival when the place ought to have been deserted with everyone down on the far side of the river to see the festivities. It should have been a rich haul. Wealthy merchant. Attractive wife. Servants. All that time wasted.

      At first she had wondered if she had somehow climbed into the wrong building. It was comfortable enough inside. The courtyard garden was well kept and the one public room on the ground floor that was lit with lanterns looked as if it belonged to a wealthy person, but everywhere else was… she tried to think of a word. Functional.

      Very little furniture and none of it luxurious. No pictures, tapestries, silk rugs. No statues or ornaments. No trinkets. She had wandered through the upper floors, a silent shadow, a summer night’s breeze, moving from room to room. Searching. A growing sense that she should get out haunting her like a bad odour.

      And then, in the worst possible position, caught in a small room from which she could not run without hurting someone, she had come face to face with the merchant’s wife.

      Finger to her lips, the tall, pale woman with rose-gold hair had stood in the doorway. Jeniche had seen no fear or surprise in her face; she had seen no anger. So confused was Jeniche that she nearly dropped the amulet when it was thrown to her. By the time she had finished juggling and looked up, the woman had gone. Jeniche hadn’t wasted any time after that, either. Pushing the amulet into her pocket, she had found the nearest window, climbed to the roof and disappeared into the night.

      If it had finished there, it would have been a strange enough event to remember for the rest of her life. The only other time she had encountered someone during a robbery, they had screamed loudly enough to set the dogs howling three streets away. Jeniche knew because they were doing just that as she ran past them.

      But it hadn’t finished there.

      Suspicious and unnerved, she had roamed across the city for most of what was left of darkness, doubling back on herself, using secret ways and rooftops, watching for pursuit. By the time she had crawled into her hidden room up in the roof space of the stables, she was exhausted and still jittery.

      That was when she had first examined the amulet, playing with the liquid metal thong, studying the inscription and the slight, circular depression on the opposite face. Just as she studied it now.

      She had hidden it with her other winnings and her own money, safe in the socket of the false roof beam. And for days she had looked over her shoulder, staying away from her usual haunts, watching strange faces with care. Then, with a depressing inevitability that probably earned someone the price of a meal, the day she returned to one of her regular eating places, a squad of the city guard had pushed its way into the café where she sat and, after a violent struggle, dragged her through the streets down to the prison in the Citadel.

      No one had mentioned the amulet or the merchant’s house. No one had mentioned anything beyond the fact that she was a thief and would be tried as one at the next assize. Which meant, she knew, that she would be found guilty. Which, she had to concede, she was.

      The amulet turned slowly in front of her eyes, mesmerizing in the hot gloom. Ill-fated it may be, but she knew then that she could not part with it, that for better or worse it had been given into her care. She frowned at the tenor of her thoughts, drifting on a sluggish current between depths of grief and fear and the rocky shore of the future.

      Distant firecracker sounds broke into her reverie. She listened a moment and then retrieved a jeweller’s belt from her hiding place, stowing her winnings and her money with care before tying it in place around her waist. She got dressed and was lacing on a pair of heavy sandals when Trag knocked.

      ‘Why they doing fireworks in the day? You can’t see them in the day. And they’re too close. Odrin said they were only allowed in the Old City. It’s upsetting the horses.’

      Jeniche stared at Trag. ‘Hasn’t anyone told you?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘The city is under siege.’ She sat on the bottom step watching as Trag digested the news.

      ‘So… What about the fireworks?’

      Jeniche had wondered about that as well. She had heard them a lot. Perhaps people were throwing firecrackers at the invaders. She shrugged.

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘What’s a siege?’

      She stopped herself from sighing. It wasn’t Trag’s fault he was slow. And she knew no one in the stables bothered talking with him. He was treated like a pack animal, albeit with a degree of respect since that incident in the tavern. Someone who can eject four over-muscled bullies through a closed door without breaking into a sweat or spilling his beer tends to be given a bit of personal space.

      ‘Soldiers. From another country. They СКАЧАТЬ