Rehada frowned. “Pushing?”
“The babe that died… The same thing happened then-the feeling that the walls were closing in-and it happened again when I took the dark in Iramanshah.” Atiana shook her head while staring into the clear contents of her glass. “It is the key to these things-I feel it in my bones-but I need to take the dark again to unravel it.”
Rehada paused. “I am not a woman trusted in the halls of Iramanshah.”
“I know,” she replied, “but they will trust you in this. They must.”
Rehada wondered how much of this Soroush had seen.
Probably little, but he had always been one to listen to the signs around him, to heed them when they came. He was also one to put himself in a place to hear them, and she wondered if she could ever commit to the cause the way he had.
Probably not, she realized, but she could do this at least.
“Then come, Atiana Radieva. Come with me to Iramanshah, and we shall see what we shall see.”
The sound of gunfire lit the afternoon sky as they prepared to leave. Rehada had changed into sensible clothing, and Atiana already looked enough like a peasant-especially with her hair hidden-so they decided it best to leave her in the stolen, threadbare clothes she’d been wearing when she arrived. Rehada had no hezhan bound to her. She had released hers only the night before. Though she might have taken another, it would have been difficult, and she could not risk showing any propensity toward violence in front of Atiana. She could not risk revealing that she was Maharraht.
And besides, Rehada thought, it was probably best not to draw attention by wearing her circlet on a day like today. They would simply be two women, traveling out of the city toward the south of Uyadensk.
As they opened the door, two flatbed wagons trundled down the street, headed toward the center of the city, toward the sound of the fighting.
Rehada closed the door again, peering through the crack in the door to watch them. On the beds were a dozen men bearing crude weapons-long knives, scythes, pitchforks. Only a handful bore muskets, but these were the men that watched the buildings around them most closely, as if they expected to be attacked, or were perhaps looking for those that might run to the Boyar to report their location.
When they turned further up the street, Rehada led Atiana in the other direction, but she had been paying too much attention to the wagons. If she had been watching more closely, she would have seen the two men standing in the shadows down the street.
When she did see them, she already knew it was too late.
“Quickly,” Rehada whispered as they turned right and began heading downhill toward the river.
Atiana said nothing. She had seen them too.
When they reached the end of the alley, Rehada dared one look back.
The men had reached the mouth of the alley. They were moving quickly now.
“Run,” Rehada said.
They did, moving as quickly downhill as they dared. The stone buildings-mostly homes with small shops at the lower floors-were all two and three stories. One had a low stone wall fencing the yard and an iron gate. She leapt over the wall and grabbed a round stone. After motioning Atiana to duck down, she launched the rock across the street, down an alley that forked some twenty paces down.
She ducked down low, pulling Atiana with her, as she heard the heavy footsteps of the men approaching and the clatter of the stone as it skipped down the alley.
The soft pad of boots came nearer.
Atiana’s eyes were wide, and her chest was heaving with her rapid breath, but she seemed to have her wits about her. From inside the voluminous sleeve of her szubka, Atiana pulled a rusted kindjal. It looked worn, but its edge gleamed in the late afternoon light. She stared into Rehada’s eyes, making it clear she would fight if needed. Perhaps she was not so callow as she had seemed that time on the beach.
Rehada placed a hand on her wrist as the footsteps approached. In the distance, the sound of the river could be heard as the summer melt rushed toward the sea. Voices roaring in anger rose above it.
Then, without warning, the footsteps receded, and were gone altogether.
“Come,” Rehada said.
They were up and off once more. They raced downhill, and reached the river in short order. They stopped at the bridge that crossed it, for further uphill there was a crowd on another, larger bridge. They were stacking barrels beneath it, near the supports. They were stacking gunpowder, Rehada realized. They were going to destroy the bridge-one of the largest that crossed the river and the one used often by the Oprichni as they headed east to patrol the city.
Rehada whirled at the sound of men speaking in low voices. She thought it would be the streltsi, but she was wrong. It was a group of peasants hauling a hand-pulled cart. In the bed were three wooden casks containing what was most likely gunpowder.
Atiana took Rehada’s hand and began walking back up the way they’d come, but they stopped once more when they saw, coming toward them, the two guardsmen.
Rehada turned and began walking swiftly across the bridge.
“Stop, there,” came a voice behind her.
Rehada ran, Atiana following. Below, over the low stone wall, the Mordova coursed, creating a rush of sound.
Footsteps followed close on their heels.
A gunshot rang out. Rehada glanced behind and saw one of the guardsmen pointing a pistol at the nearby group of men, who looked on not with fear, but open hatred.
Rehada and Atiana managed to cross the river, to make it deeper into the city. The lowering sun sat behind a thick layer of clouds, casting the city in a pall, but it wasn’t so dark that they could easily hide. Plus their pursuers were close behind and gaining. They were eventually caught as they reached a narrow intersection crowded on all sides by tall stone buildings. Rehada was yanked back by her arm. She tried to free herself, then to push him away with her free hand, but he shrugged off her attacks.
Atiana had pulled her kindjal, and was facing her assailant warily. “We don’t wish to hurt you,” Atiana said.
The strelet lunged forward, but Atiana skipped backward and slashed at his wrist. He snatched his hand back, a thread of blood marking his wrist.
“You won’t be harmed,” the strelet said.
Atiana shook her head. “I’m a simple woman from Izhny, come to meet with my friend. Why would you chase us?”
The man paused, stood up straighter, confused. He looked to the other, as if he were considering her words.
“Watch him!” Rehada shouted, but too late.
Quick as a mongoose he darted in, twisting away from Atiana’s sharp thrust. In a blink he was inside her guard and levering her arm behind her back. Atiana screamed and the kindjal clattered against the cobbled street with a metallic ting.
“Don’t do this,” Atiana pleaded. “Tell them you weren’t able to find us. I’ll make both of you rich men.”
From the shadows of the alley they’d run down, the group of men were walking forward. Two were holding pistols, another a musket, and all of them were eying the streltsi with cruel eyes that spoke of emotion that had been bottled up inside for months, years-emotion ready to burst forth now that the blight had placed its heel upon their throat.
The strelet holding Atiana turned her toward them and backed up. “By the authority of your Duke, I order you to stand down.”
“Not this day,” an older man with graying hair said. Rehada recognized him. His name was Kirill. He was a butcher in the poorest part of Volgorod that also ran a drug den. He was not a man Rehada would wish to be rescued by. “You’ll be allowed to go unharmed, but you’ll not be taking them.”
“We are on the Duke’s business,” the strelet said, raising his pistol to point at the man. The other strelet did the same.
“One’s fired,” Kirill said, “leaving one shot between the two of you.”
Without speaking, the two streltsi began backing up.
