The Shadow at the Gate (6 page)

“Silent as ever.”

“Not at night.” Sibb handed him the sandwich. “Eat. Every night brings her nightmares and she wakes, screaming and crying. I’d take them on myself, if I could, the poor dear.”

“At least she’s safe enough here.”

Loy shook his head. A knife moved slowly in his hands—unwatched but deft—carving away curls of wood as he whittled a stick. His voice rumbled quietly.

“In Hull, they say that a man lives in two homes. One a house of wood and stone. The other a house of flesh and soul. She might be safe in the one, but not t’other.”

CHAPTER SIX

A DAY OUT

Jute woke up that morning desperately trying to remember his dream. He had been flying with the hawk. Soaring through a night sky without end. Thunder had been muttering in deep, sullen crescendos. Dark columns of clouds riven by white lightning. A storm gathering in the east and hurrying toward Hearne as if whipped along by the malice of some ancient sky god.

But he had been untouchable. He rode on the wind with the hawk soaring next to him. Stupefying speed. The air had rushed through him. His flesh frayed into wind, speed, moonlight. The hawk’s eye as black as night. Filled with the depths of the sky, glittering with stars, as if that single pupil was a portal that opened into a larger sky than the one through which they flew.

But he woke and the dream faded.

Jute was instantly depressed. Bored. He opened the shutters of his room and peered out. It had rained the night before. Far below, he could see the puddles on the street. It was early, but Mioja Square was already crowded. He could see quite a bit of the square, for it was just down the street that ran alongside this side of the university. He knew he was too high up for anyone to see him from the street below. Perhaps he might hit someone if he spit. There was a breeze blowing, however, and the wind blew his attempts back into the wall below him.

He was about to swing the shutters closed when he noticed a stone ledge just below his window. Well, not just below. It looked a good fifteen feet down from the sill. Still, what was fifteen feet? He had dropped further than that before. True, if he missed his footing on the ledge that meant there was another hundred feet or so to fall before his descent would be abruptly stopped by the roof of a lower story of the university.

He breakfasted on some bread and a sad-looking sausage and thought about the ledge. It looked like the ledge ran the length of the wall to the corner, at which point it met a copper drainpipe. That made the ledge doubly interesting. The copper drainpipes he had encountered in the past had usually proven to be helpful. He could recall a manor in the Highneck Rise district that had been guarded by wards on all of its doors and windows. They had been very good wards and, being much younger then, he had not had the skill to evade them with silence. But there had been a copper drainpipe climbing right up to the roof. The dormer windows of the attic had not been warded.

For the rest of the morning, he made a valiant effort to put the ledge from his mind. It wouldn’t do to think about such things. After all, if he ventured out into the streets of Hearne there was no telling who he might run into. He certainly didn’t want to end up in the clutches of the Juggler, or, even worse, Nio and that creature he kept in his cellar. No, he had best remain within the university ruins.

It was noon when he gave in.

He climbed out the window. The sun was high and the light felt warm on his skin. He lowered himself over the side, hanging onto the sill with his hands. Then, after taking a deep breath, he let go and dropped. It was ridiculously easy. The ledge was wider than it had looked from his window, particularly once he was standing on it. He grinned and looked up at the window above his head. And then he realized he had no way to climb back up. He ran his hand over the stone wall. He could not feel a single handhold.

“Shadows,” he muttered. But then he cheered up quickly enough, for he was a boy and part of what makes a boy is the faith that problems take care of themselves. At any rate, he didn’t have to worry about getting back inside until after he had climbed down and stretched his legs a bit. And that was that.

Jute made short work of the ledge. It was almost wide enough to walk along. The drainpipe was made of stout copper and the brackets were fixed to the walls with large bolts that had survived whatever weather the last several hundred years had thrown at them. In no time at all, he was shinnying down the pipe.

He was so pleased with himself that he made a dreadful mistake once he reached the roof below. It was a gentle slope of slate tiles. Jute figured on walking across the roof and then climbing down the wall to reach the alley below. The roof was fairly high and safe from casual eyes, but the wall would be another matter altogether. Not difficult to scale, of course, but it would have to be done unnoticed.

When he reached the middle of the roof, he began to sink. One moment the tiles were perfectly hard slate, and then the next instant they were like soft clay. He staggered, terrified, trying to grab onto something. There was only the roof. The wall was too far away. He fell forward on his knees and felt them sink into the tiles. Jute could hear a moist, sucking sound as if some horrible child was greedily devouring a peach. He looked down, half-expecting to see the gigantic mouth around his ankles. A scream gurgled up through his throat but he bit down hard and the roof was silent except for the dreadful sucking sound of the tiles.

He was sinking faster now. A terrifying thought struck him. What was below? What was waiting in the darkness below the roof? His mind devised nightmarish creatures. Dozens of arms and claws and eyes on stalks, all craning upwards and ready to grab hold of his ankles to wrench him down into the dark and their feast. He could even hear their noisy hunger now, the clicking of claws and teeth clamoring in his mind. What a wretched, horrible noise!

Noise.

Noise is exactly what you don’t need.

Of course, Jute thought stupidly, feeling himself sink even further—he was almost up to his waist now. It’s just another ward.

Silence.

He leaned back and looked at the sky. A perfect blue arc spanned his sight. The sun shone down. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to open his mind to the silent watchfulness of the sky, the silence of the blue heights and the light that did not waver in the muteness of its descent. A window in his mind swung open and the light and the space flooded inside. The horror was gone, for there was no more room for such a thing in the midst of the silence. With a damp, disappointed sigh, the roof gave Jute up. Trembling, he rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes. He grinned shakily. He crawled across the tiles until he reached the edge, even though he knew the roof ward would not activate again. The wall under the roof’s overhang was simple enough. With no one in sight, he shinnied down a drainpipe to the cobblestones below. Grinning from ear to ear, he scampered down the street.

He was scarcely able to take in the delight of what lay before him—Mioja Square crowded and bustling with people. He had never seen so many people before. Flags fluttered in the breeze. Canopied stalls and barrows were jammed side by side. An incomprehensible hubbub came to the boy’s ears. He heard a bewildering mix of every accent of every duchy in Tormay, from Harlech in the north to Harth in the south, every village from the plains and forests, and the mountains of the Morn range. Anyone who had anything to sell, anyone who had the gold or desire to buy or be bought from, was in Hearne. All of Tormay was crowded into that immense square, jumbled and jostling and cheerful in the sunlight. At least, that’s the way it seemed to the boy.

There were haughty Vomarone gentry, strutting like peacocks and stooping every now and then to investigate whatever bits of finery happened to catch their inquisitive eyes. The people of Harth were there, aloof and imperious with their eyes as blue as a desert sky and their hair sun-scoured white. Rich farmers from Hull, proclaiming loud, boisterous opinions on everything and everyone to impress their womenfolk they shepherded about. There were even a few men from Harlech, though hardly anyone in that city would have recognized them as such.

Jute forgot everything Severan had said. He forgot the cellar in Nio’s house and what waited there in the dark. He forgot the Guild. The sunlight and the colorful clamor of the square were too much for him. It was all too wonderful. Without another thought, he sauntered out of the alley and into the crowd.

At first, Jute contented himself with ambling through the press of people. This could not be done in a straight line, of course, because the vendors had created an impromptu maze in the square. The place was a labyrinth of stalls with their canopies and tented inner sanctums, as well as the barrows that maneuvered about into more advantageous configurations as the day wore on. The placement and ordering of these little shops were delicate feats of diplomacy, guile, bribery, and sometimes downright violence on the part of the merchants and their apprentices. It might be more beneficial for a honeycake seller to be near someone selling pillows and blankets, for the sight of such homely articles tended to encourage people, particularly men, to indulge in sweets. Those who wove wards always tried to locate their stalls next to blacksmiths, particularly those specializing in weapons. There was nothing quite like racks of gleaming daggers to set a goodwife wondering whether or not her home could use an extra protection ward. Any jeweler would be grateful to have a tea brewer nearby, for those most likely to buy an icefire pendant for their mistress or earrings for a daughter were always helped along to their decision by plenty of time and plenty of hot tea.

For a while, Jute wandered along at the heels of two tall men who were clearly from Harth. They conversed together in courtly tones that delighted him, for their speech sounded like the poetry the street storytellers sometimes used when they told their most expensive tales. He considered relieving the two men of their purses, for his own pockets were empty, but decided against it, as both of them walked with the alertness of cats and bore swords on their belts. This was also noticed by a blacksmith’s apprentice as the pair proceeded down a row of stalls, small shadow in tow.

“Sharpen yer swords, sirs!” bawled the apprentice. “Copper an edge!” In the stall behind him, a cloud of steam rose as the blacksmith plunged a glowing knife into a tub of water. The two Harthians stopped.

“Only one copper an edge,” said the apprentice. He wiped his nose and then rubbed his hands together, sensing a bit of business.

“I fear this blade of mine has no need for the stone,” said the taller of the two men. He glanced over the weapons displayed on the planked tables within the stall. The offerings were mostly unimpressive—serviceable blades, bundles of arrowheads, axe heads, and even a helm or two—but there was a collection of three knives that seemed to catch his eye.

“The Hearne air, sir, puts a rust on any iron,” returned the apprentice.

“What think you, Stio?” said the man to his companion. “Would my lady sister be pleased by such as these?” He indicated the three knives.

“Has your father’s court become so dangerous that gentle ladies would need knives?” said the other. “Faith, my lord Eaomod, her beauty is weapon enough, for keenly do I still bleed from her edge.”

Eaomod laughed and picked up one of the knives. It was an elegant weapon, the blade inlaid with delicate whorls of silver. With a careless flick of his hand, the man sent the knife dancing across his fingers. It whirled and spun through the air, though at every moment it seemed the blade must surely draw blood.

“My master’s a right hand with the anvil, my lord,” said the apprentice. “Just as you surely are a weapon master.”

“I doubt you not,” said the Harthian. “Yet I fear his anvil did not see the making of this blade.”

The apprentice grinned and shuffled his feet. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered, attracted by the sight of the flashing blade. Jute edged closer as well and relieved the apprentice’s pockets of two copper pieces. The blacksmith wiped his hands on a rag and stepped up. He cuffed his lad good-naturedly.

“Right you are, my lord,” he said. “Someday I might be making a pretty little thing like that. I’ve many years to live yet before I learn the secrets of such smithying.”

“I think you will have to travel to Harlech to learn art as made this,” said the Harthian.

He might have said more, but Jute had already moved away. A breeze brought him the scent of raisins and he drifted along its trail, listening to his stomach grumble and jingling the two coppers in his pocket. Never before had he seen the square so crowded. Even on days when such extravagant fairs weren’t being held it took quite some time to walk from one end to the other. Now, it would take all day long if he was to see every stall, every barrow, and every delightful oddity being hawked.

And what if he himself was seen?

Jute sobered at the thought, even though he had not seen a single familiar face since he had climbed out the window. Yet he might be spotted without his knowledge. He quickened his pace and slipped down a row of carpet merchants, sash sellers, and handkerchief vendors. Just ten minutes more and then he’d hurry back to the university and safety. He’d investigate a few pockets and then be on his way. No one would be any the wiser, and besides, Severan himself would never know. He hardly ever saw the old man.