on the icy cobblestones. At least three of them were over thirty, and the one with the air of authority had a rather impressive mustache. He said, “Ma’am, I understand you’ve found some foreigners in the city?”
She nodded as she waved them after her. They followed in a loose knot with their rifles in their hands, and at the door of the tavern the captain set two of them to stand guard outside. Shifrah told them which room to check and then paced across the street to wait. It was still early and precious few Espani were hustling through the streets to wherever it was that Espani went to work. Churches, she guessed.
A sneeze caught her attention and she looked to her left. At the end of the street a lean figure was straightening up and wiping his face. A much larger figure grabbed him by the collar and hauled him around the corner and out of sight.
“Damn.” She turned to the two soldiers still outside the tavern. “Hey! They’re down there! End of the street! Left at the corner!”
Shifrah bolted down the icy street, hoping that any ice she stepped on would crack and shatter rather than slip under her weight. She skidded around the corner and saw a thickening crowd down the next road. The big Mazigh’s bare scalp bobbed among the sea of heads and she took off after it.
She felt her heart pounding in her chest and her blood thundering through her head. How much whiskey did I drink last night?
Shifrah crashed into the edge of the crowd and set to worming her way deeper and deeper into the press of bodies. They were in a large, open square bordered on two sides by a small cathedral and lined with clothiers’ shops on the other two sides. She saw the dummies standing behind the tall glass windows, stuffed and headless bodies in sharply tailored suits.
How Italian of them.
The tide of the crowd flowed toward the cathedral. A morning mass. The Mazigh’s head showed the big man wasn’t making much better progress cutting across the square and she focused on his stubbled crown and the bright puff of vapor streaming from his unseen face.
Shifrah grunted and began shoving people out of the way to close the distance to the big man’s head. The Espani around her made countless surprised and angry looks, but she didn’t give them a second glance.
They won’t do anything. They’re church people, just like the church people back in Rome. The only church people to worry about are in Constantia, and there aren’t any Constantians here.
The Mazighs broke free of the crowd and darted down a side street, and a moment later Shifrah burst out of the square and raced after them. The two men were only a few yards away now. The sounds of her boots slapping the ice and slush echoed off the stone walls and the Mazighs twisted their heads around to look over their shoulders.
Still running, she drove her bare first through the young one’s surprised face and felt his nose crack under her knuckles. When she saw him falling backward with the first glimmer of blood in his nostril, she knew he was no longer in this fight and she spun just in time to catch the big man’s open-handed strike to her neck. She grabbed his arm with both hands but still the blow threw her against the alley wall. Her boots slipped but she scrambled away before she fell and threw a fist and another fist and a boot at the hulking Mazigh’s face, but each time the man just raised his own fist and took the blow on his arm.
He’s a boxer. He’s used to pain. I won’t be able to wear him down.
Behind her she heard the younger Mazigh moaning, his voice distorted by his broken nose and no doubt one or both hands clutched to his face.
“Lady, who the hell are you?” the big man asked.
She backed away a few paces up the alley, careful not to let him corner her against the wall. She considered drawing her knives but she had seen the man’s fat hunting knife under the bed.
A boxer and a knife-fighter, and three times my size. This is not turning out to be one of my better days.
She straightened up and lowered her fists. “I was sent to kill any Mazigh spies I could find. I found you.”
“What for? You’re no soldier. Hell, you’re not even Espani, are you? I guess that makes you a freelancer, doesn’t it?” He nodded and lowered his meaty fists. “Fine, you want money? Let us get out of here and I’ll get you money. We’re not spies. We’re just trying to get home.”
The younger one staggered up, gingerly touching his face. “Major, she broke my nose.”
“Major?” Shifrah smiled. “A Mazigh officer who carries a knife instead of a gun. I like that.”
“Good for you.” The major spat on the ground. “So, do we have a deal? You cut us loose now and I pay you later. Name’s Zidane. You come find me in Tingis and we’ll settle up there. You’ve got my word. Okay?”
“It sounds like a very nice deal.” It did sound nice. Marrakesh, far across the Strait of Tarifa, would be warm, so much warmer than Espana or Italia. The only hiccup was the Mazigh warrant on her head, but that could be dealt with. “And I’d be happy to take that deal and walk away right now except for one little problem, major. I already told the soldiers where you are.”
Behind her at the mouth of the alley, she heard the Espani soldiers shouting as they slipped out of the cathedral crowd and ran toward the Mazighs. The big man glared over her head and muttered, “Damn.” He grabbed his companion by the collar and hauled him away at a dead run.
Shifrah smiled and bit her lip. She stepped back against the cold stone wall of the alley to let the soldiers fly past, and then she stepped back into the lane to watch them plunge into the slow-moving traffic on the main road ahead. With her hands on her hips, thumbs gently pressing against the handles of two of the knives hidden in her coat, she stood thinking.
So which is the better deal? Do I bag some heads to keep Sal happy in case I need him again, or do I save the big man, take the cash, and spend a few months in the sun?
The sounds of men yelling and the sharp, solitary reports of rifle shots echoed in the distance.
Sorry, Sal. You need to learn to be nicer to the ladies.
She turned and hurried back up the alley, across the now-empty square beside the large church, and then around the smaller streets back to the Swallow. Her horse was waiting for her.
It took several precious minutes to get the blanket and saddle in place, and though she’d done it a hundred times, she still rode out into the cold morning streets with the nagging doubt that she’d done something wrong. She dismissed it. When it came to horses, something was always going wrong.
Dumb animals.
She rode as swiftly as she dared back across the square and then began listening for the sounds of violence. Six soldiers with rifles against one man with a knife and one boy with a cold. Shifrah worked her tongue across her teeth as she listened to the quiet murmurs of the street, of people walking and talking and working.
Maybe this is a bad idea.
Three rifle shots echoed over the rooftops and she spurred her horse into a gallop, angling across the street and around the corner at the next intersection. People on foot scattered before her and it wasn’t long before she spotted a knot of chaos in the middle of the road ahead. People were shouting and scattering, dropping baskets and sacks in the middle of the street to make way for the squad of men in blue mechanically firing and reloading their primitive rifles. Shifrah grimaced. At least they’re only Espani rifles. If they were Mazigh weapons, they’d be spewing bullets non-stop. Never mind Mazigh revolvers.
She shuddered at the thought of bullets, weapons flying faster and smaller than the eye could follow, tearing down a strong woman, or even a man for that matter.
With a knife in one hand, she charged the back of the soldiers’ line and cried out, “For God and good Prince Valero!” in her best Espani, which sounded a great deal like her best Italian. But the soldiers all froze at the cry and glanced up at her as the horse clattered into the center of their loose formation in the street.
“Where are they? Where are the spies?” she shouted, waving her knife.
“Get out of the way!” The soldiers poured around her, surging on down the street. Only the mustachioed captain bothered to catch her eye and give her a properly dirty look.
She grinned back. “Let’s get them!” She kicked the horse into another dead run down the street and from her elevated seat she caught a glimpse of the major’s head darting to the right around a corner at the far end of the street. “They went left! Down there!” She pointed with her knife and to her relief three of the soldiers stumbled to a halt and then veered off to the left. The other three shouted back, “No, no, they went right! Right!”
The confusion was brief but real. Blank looks all around and uncertain fingers pointing in different directions. But the captain’s shouting soon had them back on the trail.
Unwilling to risk another transparent interruption to the chase, Shifrah turned down another street running
