‘Bitch!’ the first soldier bellowed, wiping blood from his nose with the back of his gauntlet, and he pushed his reluctant fellow forward, urging, ‘I’m fine. Let’s get her.’
Swift ran at the wall, sprang up it to grab an exposed beam and swung through a gap in the broken roof. She slid awkwardly on the loose tiles, struggling to avoid falling into the street below, got a grip, and hauled herself up the slippery tiles to peer back down through the hole in the roof at the infuriated soldiers. ‘Where now, you little bitch?’ the soldier with the bloodied nose asked as he brushed dust from his thundermaker. ‘Caught like a possum up a drain, eh?’
She assessed the rooftop geography. The roof she was on was a storey higher than the building to the left. The one to the right was a similar height, but there was a space more than five armspans wide separating them. The building behind was a storey higher than her roof with a green shuttered window and a drainpipe in the wall facing her.
To jump down meant risking an injury and she could see the roof was of loose tiling. She had jumped onto a similar roof almost three years ago and fell straight through, into the bedroom of a startled couple. She had twisted her ankle in the fall and nearly ended up arrested. She’d only go that way if there were no better choices.
She could clear the gap to the adjoining roof if she had a good run-up, but her roof was sloped and rotting.
Something jarred the tiles near her feet and she looked down to discover that the soldiers had found a ladder. The one with the bloodied nose was on his way up. She kicked at the ladder, but his weight on it foiled her effort, so she drew her knife and waited, glaring down at him. He stopped climbing, just beyond her reach. ‘You’ve got no way out of this. Others are coming. Don’t make this messy,’ he scowled.
‘You want me? You climb up and get me,’ she retorted.
‘I think I’ll wait here,’ he said, and grinned dourly.
Swift was tempted to throw her knife to teach him respect, but that would leave her weaponless. Jumping to another roof was the only way to go. But which roof?
A creaking sound drew her attention to the adjoining wall with the green window shutters and she saw, to her surprise, that the shutters had been opened. With a little effort, she could climb a drainpipe and go through the window. She sheathed her knife and scooped up several loose tiles. ‘These are for you,’ she said and peppered the soldier on the ladder with the sharp missiles, lacerating his exposed arms and head until he fell. She jerked back as a second soldier fired his thundermaker. Realising that they were willing to kill her, she scrambled across the roof, clambered nimbly up the drainpipe, which groaned and threatened to tear from the wall, jumped to grab the lip of the window and hauled herself through.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘You might explain why you’ve barged into my house,’ the elderly woman demanded.
Swift, hand on the hilt of her knife, studied the woman with the wrinkled face and white frizzy hair that looked as if a brush had never been through it in her lifetime, and said, ‘Just passing through,’ as she started for a green door that she spied.
‘Not so fast,’ the woman squawked. ‘How do I know you’re not a thief?’
‘Because I haven’t stolen anything,’ Swift told her. ‘I’m in a hurry.’ She turned the door handle, only to discover that it was locked. ‘Where’s the key?’
‘Manners, child, manners,’ the woman chided.
Swift approached within arm’s length of the elderly woman and said calmly, ‘Old Lady Time, I’m not a child. The key to the door—please.’
The woman met Swift’s menacing gaze without faltering, her intense green eyes glittering with energy. ‘A little politeness goes a long way, child.’ She pulled a blue string around her neck out of her blouse and a rusted metal key dangled at the end. ‘Are you sure you want to go out there? The soldiers are searching the buildings.’
Swift hesitated, scrutinising the woman warily, noting her decayed clothing. Dirt and age made the garments look grey, but lingering and faded hints of green suggested the blouse’s original colour and the woman’s trousers might originally have been cream. She retraced her steps to the window and cautiously peered out. Three soldiers stood on the slippery green tiles almost a storey below, considering where their quarry must have gone and she could just hear their voices. ‘No way would she have jumped across there,’ argued one. ‘You couldn’t even jump that gap.’
‘Bullshit I couldn’t,’ the second retorted.
‘Well, she didn’t go down either,’ said the third.
‘Then where?’
‘They’re still on the roof,’ Swift told the woman as she stepped back to avoid being seen in case they looked up.
The woman pushed past and leaned out of the window. ‘What’s going on?’ she called to the soldiers. ‘Can’t an old woman get some peace to sleep?’
‘You seen a girl?’ a soldier yelled back. ‘Cropped red hair. Skinny.’
‘All I see is three young men making nuisances of themselves,’ she replied and slammed the shutters. ‘There,’ she said to Swift as she turned around. ‘That’s that.’
‘You opened the shutters for me, didn’t you?’ Swift asked.
‘I needed some air,’ the woman replied. They heard knocking on a door below. ‘That will be the soldiers wanting to search the building. You better go in there,’ she directed, pointing to an open doorway.
Swift saw bedding on the floor. ‘What if they come in?’ she asked. ‘I’d be better off going out the window if the others are gone.’
The woman shook her head. ‘They’ll have someone waiting. In there, you’ll find a large wooden trunk. Open it, take out some clothing, and climb in.’ The knocking became insistent. ‘Go on. I’ll see to the soldiers.’ She headed for the door.
Swift went into the bedroom and found another window, this one open for air. It overlooked a small street, where coloured awnings covered a scattering of shopfronts and three soldiers in their red uniforms were peering into every window they passed. A brown dog loped behind them, sniffing the backs of their trouser legs with canine curiosity. Recognising that the soldiers were not the ones who chased her onto the roof, she reconciled herself to hiding in the old woman’s bedroom.
The room was messy, with clothes randomly scattered across the floor and an unmade bed. The nub of a big purple candle sat on a shelf, wax hanging like transparent strands of thick hair or spider web. The only furniture in the room was the wooden trunk, made from chunks of dark mallee wood that someone must have struggled to carry up the stairs to the room. She listened, but downstairs was quiet. The idea of climbing into a trunk in a stranger’s room, putting herself in a position from which there was no possible defence if the soldiers opened the trunk, made her feel vulnerable and uncertain, but when she heard the heavy military boots on the stairs she drew her knife, opened the trunk, shifted the clothing and climbed in.
The trunk stank of camphor, but it felt nice to be snuggled in the clothing and it prompted a childhood memory. When she was very little, perhaps five or six, she remembered climbing into a clothes cupboard in her mother’s house, playing hide-and-seek with her little brother, Sparkle, who was four. Sparkle couldn’t find her, but she was so warm and comfortable that she went to sleep and everyone thought that she’d been stolen because no one knew where she was. Sparkle died aged ten in a factory accident. By then her father had long left their family and was a father to Passion and Chase.
A door opened and voices and boots entered the adjoining room. ‘This is my private room,’ she heard the old woman explaining. ‘That’s the window there.’ Boots shuffled and footsteps approached. ‘That’s my bedroom,’ the old woman said. ‘The window in there looks straight out on the street. You can see that even if she did do the impossible and get through my window she had nowhere to go, did she?’
‘What’s that?’ a soldier asked.
‘My clothes trunk,’ the old woman replied. ‘You still haven’t told me wh
y you’re looking for this girl.’
‘She killed Prince Shortear.’ The boots and the voice stopped outside the trunk. Swift clutched her knife in anticipation.
‘Hey!’ she heard a man shout. ‘It’s a bloody rat!’
The boots by the trunk scraped and the voice attached to them yelled, ‘You’re joking! That’s a huge bloody rat!’
‘Get it!’ another voice cried, and the room filled with shuffling feet and curses until someone yelled, ‘It went out the window!’ A thundermaker cracked and the men laughed. ‘What sort of shot was that?’
‘You killed a roof tile, mate.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Lady, you better clean up the mess in this place if that’s how big the rats are,’ said a soldier.
‘Probably breeding them for meat,’ another soldier remarked sarcastically and the men laughed.
Swift heard their boots recede and fade down the stairs. A door shut and keys rattled in a lock. Softer steps approached and a voice whispered, ‘You can come out. They’re gone.’ The lid lifted.
Swift climbed out, blinking and sheathed her knife. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked as she brushed herself down.
The woman smiled, her face fissured. ‘You looked like you needed some help. I just happened to be here.’
‘I’ll leave as soon as it’s safe,’ Swift told her as she headed for the window to establish where the soldiers were in the street. Two were still patrolling. ‘What was all that about a rat?’ she asked, turning back.
The woman smiled. ‘They disturbed a rat when they were stomping around. It went out the window that you came in.’
Swift shook her head as she went into the main room. ‘Good timing. I thought for certain they were going to open the trunk.’
‘Sometimes luck goes our way,’ the woman remarked. ‘What’s your name?’
Swift looked at her. ‘What’s yours first?’
The woman chuckled and waggled her head as if the question amused her. ‘You can call me what you’ve already called me,’ she replied, smiling. ‘Old Lady Time is rather a nice name.’
‘But what is your real name?’ Swift persisted, playing along with the woman’s absurd humour.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Old Lady Time said. ‘What I might have been called before doesn’t mean anything to anyone, not even to me. Names suit circumstances. Old Lady Time will do fine, child. That’s who I am to you.’ She chuckled again and said, ‘So now you can tell me your name.’
‘Swift,’ Swift replied. ‘I don’t normally tell strangers my name.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Names are a personal thing, aren’t they? If people know your name, they know too much about you.’
Old Lady Time smiled. ‘That’s an odd notion, but I think I understand. So why are the soldiers chasing you?’
Swift checked the shuttered window. The soldiers had left the rooftop. ‘I heard them tell you,’ she said without turning around.
‘Yes,’ the old woman acknowledged, ‘but did you really kill the prince?’
‘Yes,’ Swift answered bluntly. ‘Now what will you do, Old Lady Time, now that you know I’m a murderer?’
‘Do?’ Old Lady Time croaked and chuckled again. ‘What I’ll do is bring you a mug of warm soup, if you’re hungry. I’m about to have some.’ She didn’t wait for Swift to answer as she went out the green door.
Swift listened to the old woman’s feet descending on the stairs and then took the opportunity to search the room that she’d first entered via the window. Apart from the green shutters and the green door, it was plain, with whitewashed walls and two stools. The old woman was obviously poor, lonely and probably glad of the unexpected company. This might be me, one day, she considered, if I live long enough. She reflected on her current predicament. The soldiers knew who she was and were determined to arrest her for Shortear’s murder. That didn’t surprise her, because Barrel Taverner would have named her when he was tortured. She should have factored that into her planning in the first place, but she hadn’t been professional enough. Taverner was expendable and she could have easily dispatched him, along with the girl prostitute. But, she ruminated, Taverner had always been reliable, so I couldn’t consider killing him, and the girl with the foreign name, Ella, reminded me too much of Passion. Sentiment is your enemy, she remembered from Dagger’s teaching. I dug my own grave when I accepted the job, she admitted.
Temple bells began tolling across the city, so she moved to the shutters and cautiously opened one, in case the soldiers had returned to the rooftop. She knew the bells were only ever rung on important occasions, like the arrival of royal ships or grand processions, but they were rare. Then she remembered that the king had died. How long do they wait to bury a king? she wondered. Did Prince Shortear also get a royal funeral? She snorted. Do I care? She closed the shutter.
There was still the matter of the three job offers—two princes and the Joker. She reasoned that the last one, even though it was through legitimate channels, probably was the one being used to set her up for capture. Whoever first hired her for Shortear’s murder had decided to cut their losses and remove her. Perhaps, she argued silently, or perhaps the soldiers were really just there to arrest her for the murder and there was no doublecross involved. ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered and sat on a stool.
She drew her knife to check the edge and pulled a small paper package from her pocket to coat the blade with grease before returning the knife to its sheath. Footsteps grew on the stairs and Old Lady Time, bearing two red mugs, entered, announcing, ‘Soup.’ She passed a mug to Swift and sat on the second stool. ‘There’s no one in the shop. It’s a quiet morning,’ she said as she put the tray on a small table beside the bed.
‘What sort of shop do you have?’ Swift asked.
‘A bookshop,’ Old Lady Time replied. ‘Do you read?’
‘No,’ said Swift bluntly.
‘You should read.’
‘I can’t,’ Swift said irritably.
‘Have you wanted to learn?’
‘No need,’ Swift replied. ‘Who buys books?’
Old Lady Time shut her eyes as she said, ‘Not many.’
‘Then why have a book shop?’
‘I like books,’ the old woman replied. ‘Did you hear the bells?’
‘Yes,’ Swift replied, and sipped her soup, savouring the vegetable flavour.
‘The king is finally being laid to rest,’ Old Lady Time murmured. ‘A new generation comes to power.’
‘Prince Inheritor,’ Swift said between swallows.
‘Perhaps,’ Old Lady Time murmured.
Swift looked at the woman. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘He’s not the only one who wants the crown. All of the king’s sons want to be king. River’s too young to be king, but he’d take it if he knew how. Shadow, now there’s a man whose ambitions are worn on his chest like armour, and he curries the favour of the Seers.’
‘Why would he want the Seers’ help?’ Swift asked through a mouthful of soup.
‘Many reasons. Mainly the religious revolution.’
‘And what’s that?’ Swift asked.
Old Lady Time stood as she explained. ‘The Seers live in the hope that the Demon Horsemen will bring a new age of enlightenment to the city. Prince Shadow believes their prophecy and the Seers want him to be the vehicle to make it come true.’
‘Prophecies are bullshit,’ said Swift. ‘When has one ever come true?’
Old Lady Time sighed. ‘You young people have so much faith in your free will, don’t you?’
‘If you mean I don’t believe anyone can predict the future or things like that, then yes. That’s impossible.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Easy. Something that hasn’t happened can’t be predicted. Who knows what I’m going to do today? Tomorrow? I don’t even know that.’
‘But just because you don’t know doesn’t mean someone else can’t know it.’
Old Lady Time smiled. ‘Most people would agree with you, Swift. The Seers believe otherwise.’
‘Like I said before, when has it really happened?’
‘The Seers would tell you that it’s happened many times. They’d pull out books with prophecies about the passing of the dragons, the reign of the kings, the predictions of drought and flood and fire and famine. They’d tell you who made the prophecies, and when, and when the prophecies were fulfilled.’
‘And that’s all bullshit. It’s easy to say something was predicted in the past after something big happens. And what’s that about dragons? That proves they’re mad. There’s no such thing as dragons. Everyone knows that. You are a strange woman.’
‘There were dragons once. Even sensible historians recorded their existence. They were an integral part of the power of the old Ashuak Empire that dominated the civilised world to the east. The Seers believe their predecessors were the Vechik, ancient priests who prayed to the dragons as the earthly links to the old Ashuak god, Ho-da.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘From books.’
‘Fantasy stories,’ Swift scoffed. ‘Sounds like the prince and the Seers are lunatics.’
‘I might agree with you, but they don’t see themselves as lunatics. The Seers want a religious state with a strict moral code according to the most ruthless interpretations of The Word of Jarudha. They want to establish a patriarchal society with women reduced to second-class citizens.’
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