'The soldiers will arrest us for being out after curfew. You're not local, I can hear it. They'll cleanse you.'
'They won't catch us.'
She let herself down the pitch, then helped him negotiate a pair of drops that brought them to the span. It was a festival arch, sturdy enough. In daylight it would be seen to be painted a brilliant yellow, but the shadows were kind and it was not difficult to
scoot across with a leg on either side of the peak. They were about halfway across when the woman slumped against the tiles. Feet shuffled and slapped on the street below. He flattened himself as lantern light bobbed into view. Soldiers drove a mob of folk down the avenue. Many of the prisoners were sobbing; others trudged silently, heads bowed. A few called out.
'At least allow us to gather our belongings before you expel us! We never did anything wrong!'
'Please let me return and get my children! They'll starve. You can't be so heartless.'
'Sheh!' The swaggering man at the front barked a laugh. 'They break curfew, and yet they complain about usV
'They could have stayed in their villages instead of running to the city, eh?' agreed another soldier. 'Makes 'em look like they have something to hide, I reckon.'
A man broke, making a dash toward the alley snaking away behind the warehouse compound. While the forward contingent of soldiers pressed the rest of the group onward, three others went running after the fleeing man. So no one looked up as the crowd passed under the arch and down the avenue into a night illuminated only by the lanterns carried by the soldiers.
From the alley, a man's screams rose, then failed abruptly.
After a moment, the three soldiers trotted out of the alley and hurried under the arch after the others, chortling and boasting as if they hadn't just killed a man.
'So I said, 'You've not fattened up that veal yet.' Heh. That's when I called you two over. We'd have given that foreign slave something to trim his pinched face, eh? Thinking he had the right to say no to us, eh! If sergeant hadn't called up formation just right then, I'd've bust him down.'
A comrade answered. 'You report him? That you saw an out-lander, I mean?'
'Sure I did, but I got no coin because their tent wasn't there no more when I led the captain over that way. I wonder what happened to that lot of young whores.'
'If they tried to set up in the city, they'll just be thrown out, neh? Like the rest of these gods-rotted refugees.'
Their laughter faded into the gloom.
His shoulders throbbed and his ankle burned, and he was furious and shaking, but he crept after his companion to the next roof and after that to another, the huge rations warehouse
overlooking Terta Square. There, arms hugging the roof ridge-line, they rested.
The square was lit by lanterns fixed on poles. Directly opposite, the temple dedicated to Kotaru was flanked on one side by a militia barracks brimful with enemy soldiers and on the other by a fire station left without a night guard except for its loyal dog. The rest of the square's frontage was taken up by several large inns and substantial emporia now shuttered and dark. There were four wells sunk into the center, guarded by a contingent of soldiers. A long line of people still waited outside the Thirsty Saw, guarded by yet more soldiers. Several shuffled in through the door while, from the alley that led into the back courtyard of the inn where he had seen the Guardian, ten or more hapless folk came staggering out into the square clutching their left forearms. These refugees were prodded into line. Over in the gloom by the alley entrance lay a pair of discarded bodies.
'How do we get to your temple from here? Which street?'
'Lumber Avenue. Who are you?'
'I am a spy. Not from around here.'
'That I can hear in your speech. Yet there are people who sell information or their services to the army, in exchange for coin or preference or safety.'
'True enough, Holy One. But I'm not one of them.' He sensed a smile from her tone. 'I need something from you I can't get from the army.'
'This reminds me of an episode from a tale, verea. Cruel soldiers. A chatty, attractive spy. A decrepit man of middling years.'
'How do you know I'm attractive, Holy One?'
'You've held me close a time or two as we've made our way here. I know the feel of a shapely female body. I'm not dead. Yet.'
Her body shook with suppressed laughter. 'Then we'll hope for a happy ending as in the tale, eh?'
He smiled but could not sustain it. 'How can I trust you?'
'How can any of us trust, in days like these with an army rampaging down the length of the River Istri, burning and killing as they go? Just like in ancient days, as it says in the Tale of the Guardians: 'Long ago, in the time of chaos, a bitter series of wars, feuds, and reprisals denuded the countryside and impoverished the lords and guildsmen and farmers and artisans of the Hundred.''
Nekkar mumbled the next line reflexively, overcome with bit-
ter memory of the Guardian he had met. ' ' In the worst of days, an orphaned girl knelt at the shore of the lake sacred to the gods and prayed that peace might return to her land.''
Below, soldiers whipped the detainees out of the square as those in line watched helplessly, unable to flee or to fight.
'I'm a hierodule,' whispered the spy. 'An assassin, sent from the south. I mean to kill Lord Radas, who walks in the guise of a Guardian wearing a cloak of sun. He commands this army. If we can cut off its head, then we can hope the body will die. Will you and your people help me?'
Her words struck him harder than the blows that had felled him. 'Is this even possible? Guardians can reach into your mind and heart and know what it is you intend. I have faced one. I could hide nothing from her.'
'I will do it, because I must.'
She was so sure of herself! Not in a boasting way, but in the way master carpenters surveyed roofs and made pronouncements about what it would take to fix them.
'And when Lord Radas is dead, the soldiers and their captains and sergeants will run away and we'll go back to how it was before?' he asked wryly.
For a while, the assassin remained silent. When she spoke, her words weighed heavily in the humid night air.
'There comes a time when change overtakes the traveler, as it says in the Tale of Change. Hard to say what lies beyond the next threshold. We must be ready for anything.' She brushed her fingers over his hand as a young woman might greet her uncle, not sexually but affectionately. 'I'm called Zubaidit.'
The gesture sealed his heart. 'Very well, Zubaidit. Our resources are limited, but if you can get me back to the temple alive, I'll do what I can to help you.'
'My thanks. Tell me one thing, Holy One. Have you heard they are searching particularly for anyone?'
'Indeed, yes. I heard it from the mouth of a Guardian, wearing a cloak of night. She seeks the gods-touched, and outlanders.'
Her body tensed. 'Would you hide a gods-touched outlander, Holy One? If I brought such a one to you?'
He thought of the man killed in the alley because he had tried to run away to find his children. He thought of the dead in the courtyard of the Thirsty Saw and those being dragged away for cleansing. He considered his apprentices and envoys, whom he
must protect. The army would come round and take a hostage soon enough. But his temple had no protection if they thought to trust to the whims of those who held the whips.
'I will do what I can. That's all I can offer. I'm Nekkar, by the way. We can't climb roofs all the way to the temple. How do you mean to get me home when I can barely limp along?'
'Wait here for as long as it takes to chant the episode of Foolish Jothinin from the tale of the Silk Slippers. After that, move down to the alley behind this warehouse. You keep the rope. Stay on the lowest roof. Do you see it, there?'
'Yes.'
'Be ready to move.'
She slid backward. Nekkar heard faint scrapes, and even that slight noise faded beneath the buzz of soldiers
