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For long, precious moments she ran from edge to edge of the roof, turning, looking, and trying to understand. In the darkness above her, things she could not see whistled past and tore into buildings in the Citadel and beyond, throwing debris in all directions. Arrows trailing flame arced in the night, finding dirt and oblivion, awnings and wood piles, jars of oil, flesh.
All through the Citadel, across the docks, up along the great ridge of the Old City, and beyond to richer enclaves, buildings burned. Flames leapt and roared, casting angry light into the dark parts of the city. And everywhere she looked, people ran; shouting, crying, and brandishing buckets and weapons.
Arrows fell with a clatter onto the roof where she stood, waking her from the distant nightmare. Wasting no more time, she ran and leapt the narrow gap between buildings onto a shallow-pitched pantile roof. The clay tiles clattered beneath her bare feet as she went up over the ridge and down the other side, her eyes trying to make sense of the unfamiliar roofscape as flame-shadows danced.
Running along the edge of the roof, she looked down to the ground three floors below. The only way out of the Citadel was through one of the gates, and she knew she needed to get there quickly. There had been a lot of people down on the river front, pouring off barges. She doubted they were ships’ crew.
At the corner of the building was a buttress. Without stopping to think about how narrow it was, she slipped over the side and shinned down, rolling into a small pool of shadow when she hit the ground, a yelp of pain bitten off behind tight clenched lips.
In the chaos, she took a moment to massage her stubbed toes and survey the scene. The Citadel did not have a complex layout, but it was haphazard, having evolved from the original, walled trading settlement. With all the confusion and the need to look as if she belonged, she hobbled across to a main path where a bucket chain had been formed. As one bucket passed, she slipped across, grabbed another that had been dropped and headed toward the small customs house; found herself being jostled toward the main gate just as she had hoped.
Torches flared in great iron brackets, lighting the main parade ground and gateway. The space was filled with men and horses and, to her astonishment, the main gates seemed wide open. For a moment she thought it was too late, that the Citadel had fallen, but then she saw that the great press of men were members of the city guard, newly arrived. And she also saw that the heavy gates were now slowly moving, blocking her only way out.
A horse stepped sideways and pushed her against a wall before its rider calmed it. Used to the great beasts, she waited anxious seconds so as not to startle it again by dashing off. And then, with one eye on the gates and the other on the melee of dismounting soldiers, she began to weave her way across the parade ground. Dodging booted feet and pikestaffs, bumped and jostled, she pushed her way to the ever-narrowing gap, tripping as a clear run opened up in front of her.
Hauled to her feet by a rough hand grasping her tunic, she turned ready to fight.
‘Get out, lad,’ said the soldier, not looking properly and making a mistake she was used to and often exploited. He marched her across to the gatehouse. ‘No place for you here,’ he added and pushed her out into the street. The gates slammed loudly behind her and she heard the first of the great locking bars fall into place.
‘May your gods protect you,’ she called as loudly as she could. And then ran off into the mayhem in the streets of the Old City.
Chapter Two (#u5ef27c74-bf0e-52b0-b744-17559563c82a)
The Citadel, a sheer-sided mud-brick fort perched on the steep hillside, had long ago become the centre of protection for the Old City and the docks. Mostly the docks. Which was why it had been maintained through the centuries. The Old City on the other hand, as old parts of cities do, had degenerated to a maze of tiny streets, small markets, and battered-looking houses where the poorest and hardest-working lived. Jeniche loved it. It was like a gigantic, sprawling family house, full of squabbling, loving, cooking, eating, reeking humanity, replete with secret places. Even though she knew no one who lived there, she always felt as if she belonged.
Tonight, it was different. Instead of a homely anarchy, the chaos of the place was driven by fear. The noise was confusing. Looks were hostile. She felt doors being closed against strangers. And all the time arrows fell and buildings burst and collapsed.
After a brief moment to draw breath, she decided the best thing to do would be to get back up into the main part of Makamba, retrieve her stash from her hideaway in the stables and head out of the city. Thieving was precarious at the best of times, more so since taking that ill-starred amulet, as she had discovered. In a city crawling with soldiers, it could easily prove fatal.
As she began to make her way uphill, moving from alley to alley and passage to passage, climbing walls, darting through cellars, the tone of the noise about her changed. She tried to place it and decided that the invaders must have by-passed the Citadel and attempted to breach the Old City defences.
Spurred on, she went faster, emerging onto the main street that ran between the docks and the newer parts of the city at the top of the hill. And stopped short.
A great length of the street seemed to be roofed with dancing fire, blazing cinders dropping to the cobbles, drifting in the warm breeze. Flags and bunting for the festival marking the visit of the God-King of the Tunduri people, flamed in the night. Paints and dyes lent their colour to the flames, blues and greens, yellows and reds, flickering and crackling.
The ropes on one great banner gave way and the whole thing fell, writhing, turning like a dying picture-book dragon. It hit the street with a whumph and scattered fragments of blazing material in all directions. Women emerged from houses and shops with brooms to beat it out.
Jeniche dodged on along the street, burning her feet on cinders, brushing them from her short hair as she ran. It seemed like a lifetime since she had wandered down this hill just three days ago, treating herself to sweetmeats and following the crowds out over the bridge and along the Great North Road to the complex of caves, hoping to catch a glimpse of the God-King of Tundur. Three endless days spent pacing that cell and listening to the ravings of the rapist. She shivered, dodging as a length of charred bunting fell in front of her.
The Tunduri had known how to enjoy themselves, even on a lengthy pilgrimage, but she still had no idea why there were ancient giant images of the first Tunduri God-King carved into the rock face by Makamba. Tundur, the Land of Winter, was many hundreds of miles away to the north, high in the mountains. She had asked some of the monks and nuns, but they probably hadn’t understood her, had simply smiled and given her flowers and bread. She’d bet that bread against her little bag of winnings that right now they were all heading north as fast as their feet could carry them, trundling their God-King in that huge, decorated wagon along the dusty roads to the north.
She was wondering, not for the first time, what the God-King would look like when her feet tangled themselves against something soft and heavy and she went down hard against a fresh pile of rubble, adding more bruises to her already extensive collection. A complex stench of rotting food, stale sweat, vomit, and cheap wine wafted over her and made her retch.
Peering into the gloom of a narrow alley, darkening as the last of the flags became drifting fragments of charred cloth, she could make out the dim shape of a body. Old boots, one with a missing heel, torn and no doubt dirty trousers. She didn’t want to speculate on the rest. Instead, she crawled into the darkness and leaned against the opposite wall, her arms around her knees. There would be plenty more like this one, she thought, and rested a moment.
‘Wha-oooh-err-eurgh.’
The emetic wailing startled Jeniche and she jerked back, banging her head on the wall. She lashed out, kicking at the body.
Another groan issued from the dark and the legs moved. ‘Whadjer wanna do that for?’
‘You frightened me and I’ve had enough of being frightened.’
‘What you frightened of? S’just a carnival.’
‘We’re being invaded,’ she hissed, peering out and down the main street which was now dark and quiet.
‘S’only nunks and muns.’ There was a pause. ‘Muns and nunks.’ Another pause. ‘Don’t feel very…’
At the sound of more vomiting, Jeniche stood and stepped back out onto the main thoroughfare. The sharp, tarry smell of burning rope and painted cloth came as a relief.
Firecrackers sounded at the bottom end of the Old City near the docks. A warehouse on fire, she thought, as she scurried on up the hill. When she reached the top, she paused on the edge of the old market square to look back down. Fires burned fiercely by the riverside and small, dark shapes could be seen flitting back and forth.
A shadow further up the hill seemed to move and she flattened herself back against the nearest wall before sliding round the edge of the square.
As she expected, the main gates in the Old City wall had been closed. It was the first time she had ever seen them like this. Even in the dark of night, she could see they wouldn’t last long; although if the dock gates burned down, the main gates would be all but redundant.
Standing on the narrow, unprotected stone bridge above the gates were several guards. Not wanting to test how jumpy they might be, Jeniche turned into a side street that ran parallel with the wall and looked for her own familiar route out of the Old City.
A faint smell of soot and smoke hung in the cool air of the cellar when Jeniche woke. She lay for a while, listening, sorting memory from dream. When she was fully awake, she moved to the door and edged it open. Early morning light filled the alley and lit the steps in front of her. She had slept for just a few hours.
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.
Chapter Three (#u5ef27c74-bf0e-52b0-b744-17559563c82a)
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.
With her trousers clinging to her legs and her recently won tunic hanging limp, she left a damp trail across the side yard, through the tack room where she grabbed a clean blanket, and up the steep steps to the storage loft.
Trag followed in amiable silence, carrying a bucket of water and a mop. ‘I’ll bring food when I’ve finished.’
Jeniche stopped near the top of the steps and peered down. ‘Thank you.’ She paused a moment, adding, ‘Do you remember Teague?’
After putting the bucket on a bench with care, Trag closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘The star lady,’ he said and opened his eyes again.
Jeniche nodded. ‘She… She died.’
Trag 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.
