Chapter Six
Bursting out into the sunlight, Malden turned his head wildly from side to side, looking for any avenue of escape. His foot slipped on a pile of horse droppings and he slid wildly for a long second before he got his feet under him again. Scar and Halbert were already emerging from the inn’s door when he finally spotted his next move.
A low wall ran along one side of the inn yard, a pile of unmortared stone attached to the side of the stables. It sloped gently up toward the thatched roof of the stables, and to one as fleet as Malden it was as good as a staircase. He danced up the rocks, hearing them tumble and crash as Scar tried to follow him. It was hard to be light-footed when you were covered in armor.
Malden grabbed a double handful of thatch and hauled himself up onto the roof. From there he looked out on a sea of rooftops belonging to the half-timbered houses he’d seen on the way to the inn. Most had slate shingles- which were hard to run on, as they tended to crack and shift under one’s feet. Far to his left, though, he could see the lead-lined roof of a church.
If he could reach the church he could make some real speed. He jumped across a narrow alley to the top of the house nearest the inn and landed on his feet on the sloping roof. He’d come down hard on his left ankle but he merely switched his weight to his right foot and kept running. He heard the watchmen shouting for him to halt but paid no mind. He’d yet to meet a watchman anywhere who could run along roof ridges as nimbly as he.
Malden was wise enough, however, to know he wasn’t free yet. As he jumped to the next roof, he passed over an alley choked with workmen and beggars-and two more kingsmen, who gestured upward with their weapons as he passed. Ahead he could see a public square where women were gathered around a well, washing clothes. More kingsmen were stationed there.
“By Sadu’s eight index fingers,” Malden swore. How many men had they sent for him? But then he saw other figures mixed in with the kingsmen. Smaller men, wearing no armor-their hands tied together before them. They had bruised faces and some were limping. They looked broken, and he understood.
The local watch wasn’t just after one thief who had entered the gate under false pretenses. They were sweeping up every criminal they could find. He had seen it happen before, in Ness, when the Burgrave of that city wanted to convince the populace of the grip he held on the streets. There was no better way to show one’s passion for law and order than rounding up a dozen thieves and hanging them all together in the market square.
He’d stumbled right into a mess, coming to Helstrow when he did. What an ignominious way to end his career. He hated to think he’d be brought down by something so crass.
Malden had no intention of being taken by the law, especially by the law of a town where he’d never actually committed a crime. He knew exactly what he would have to do, and having a plan put him a little more at his ease. For a while he would have to abandon his friends. He would have to find a cheap hostelry where he could lie low for a few days, then meet up again with Croy and Cythera once their business was done. He could join them after they dropped Balint off in front of a magistrate, when they were ready to leave again. Croy would probably urge him to turn himself in, but Cythera would smooth things over and the three of them could make a discreet exit from Helstrow fortress. If things got too hot in the meantime he could always climb over the wall and hide among the peasants outside.
But first he had to actually get away. Looking back, toward the inn, he saw that Scar and Halbert had procured a ladder and were even at that moment preparing to come up and catch him.
Had this been Ness, Malden would have known instantly which way to turn. He would have known some blind alley where he could lose his pursuers, or where the nearest bridge might be found so he could leap into the river, or he would remember the location of a root cellar where no one would ever think to look for him. But this was Helstrow, which he knew not at all.
The church he’d been running toward was out of the question. It fronted on the square where the kingsmen were gathering their catch. So he turned and instead headed north, toward the wall that separated the outer and inner baileys. It was the highest point he could see, and he always felt safest up in the air.
Leaping to a thatched roof, Malden tucked and rolled, knowing the tight-packed straw would offer only spongy, uncertain footing. Spitting dry husks from his mouth, he started running toward the rough stones of the wall-and then stopped in his tracks.
Up on the wall, between the crenellations, he saw royal guards in white cloaks looking down at him. One of them had a crossbow and was busy cranking at its windlass. In a moment the weapon would be ready to fire.
Crossbow bolts were designed to penetrate steel armor and pierce the vitals beneath. At this range, Malden knew the shot would probably skewer him-since he wore no armor at all-like a roasting chicken.
Backpedaling in horror, he dashed to the far side of the roof and grabbed the edge. He swung down toward the street and let go to drop the last few feet. He landed in the stall of a costermonger, amidst barrels of apples and pears.
The merchant shrieked and pointed at him.
“Good sir, I beg you, be still!” Malden said, leaning out of the entrance to the stall and looking up and down the street. “The kingsmen are after me and-”
“Thief! Thief!” the coster howled. He plucked up a handful of plums and threw them at Malden with great force. Sticky juice splattered Malden’s cloak and the side of his face.
Holding up one arm to protect his eyes, he ran out of the stall and into a street full of marketers. They turned as one at the sound of the costermonger’s shout and stared at Malden with terrified eyes.
“Murder!” the fruit merchant shouted. “Fire!” The man would say anything, it seemed, to get the blood of the crowd up.
Malden realized he had made a bad miscalculation. Had he dropped into a similar stall in Ness, he would have received a far warmer welcome. The coster would have shoved him under a blanket where he could hide until the coast was clear. But Ness was a Free City, where it was a point of civic pride that no one trusted their rulers. Here, in Helstrow, every man was a vassal of the king-his property, in all but name. And Malden knew from bitter experience that slaves often feared their masters more than they loved freedom.
“Thief! Fire! Guards!” the cry went up from every lip in the street. A dozen fingers pointed accusingly at Malden, while shopkeepers rang bells and clanged pots together to add to the hue and cry.
“Damn you all for traitors,” Malden spat, and hurried down the street as women pelted him with eggs and rotten vegetables and children grabbed at his cloak to try to trip him. He thrust his arm across his eyes to save himself from being blinded by the shower of filth and ran as fast as he dared on the trash-slick cobblestones.
But just as suddenly as it started, the cry ceased. Malden was left in silence, unmolested. Had he escaped the throng? He’d taken no more than a dozen steps away from them, yet He lowered his arm, and saw a knight in armor come striding toward him, sword in hand.
Chapter Seven
The marketers all fled or pressed into the doors of shops where they could watch from something like safety. Malden was alone with his enemy in a wide-open street, alone and very short on options.
The knight clanked as he walked. He wore a full coat of plate that covered him from head to toe. Even his joints were protected by chain mail. The visor of his helmet was down and Malden could see nothing of his face.
Such armor, he knew, had an effect on the mind of the man who wore it. It made him believe himself invulnerable. Which was true, for all practical purposes-no iron sword could slash through that steel. Spear blades and bill hooks would simply clash off the armor, at worst denting its shiny plates. Protected thus, men tended to think that their safety meant they were blessed by the gods, and that whatever they chose to do was also blessed.
Such armor was a license for cruelty and rapine.
Yet there were weapons that could pierce that protective shell. The bodkin Malden had once carried was designed to pierce even steel, if driven with enough force and good aim. Battle-axes were designed to smash through armor by sheer momentum. An arrow from a longbow, as Malden had seen, could cut through it like
