nodded or shrugged or shook their heads, but no matter their response the Italian always moved on. Finally she saw the tall fencer drop to his knee to speak to a young boy. A coin flashed between them, and the boy ran off.
“Now we’ll see some results,” Salvator said. “We’ll wait over there.” He pointed them to a shaded corner beside a shrine where a grotesquely fat stone figure sat grinning stupidly at all who passed.
“Who was that boy?” Mirari asked.
“Just someone hungry enough to do the dirty work for us.” Fabris smiled. “Spies come in all shapes and sizes these days.”
For half an hour they sat in the shade. Twice Qhora started to say something, to demand that they do more than just sit and wait, but each time her exhaustion cried out louder. She hadn’t slept on the flight from Tingis at all, and had barely eaten at Taziri’s house, and her breasts were aching because little Javier wasn’t there to relieve her of her milk. The thought of Javier, of his huge black eyes and fat cheeks, shattered her thoughts of anything but home and she leaned back against Mirari, her eyes closed, and tried to sleep, tried to fall into some oblivion where none of this was real, where the last day had never happened, where everything was perfect again and the future wasn’t so terrifying.
But she couldn’t sleep. She opened her eyes and watched other people walk around and talk and wave and lift and pull and ride by. Gradually, the volume of noise increased, a gentle crescendo that eventually left her squinting and rubbing her forehead to ward off the inevitable headache. Then the noise of the crowd rushed up, crashing into the square with the press of several hundred more bodies all dressed in dark browns and reds, many waving sticks and rods and hammers over their heads.
“What’s happening?” Qhora stood up, her hand pressed to the dirk in her sleeve.
“A riot.” Salvator grimaced. “Kanemi migrants. They come up from the south looking for work, and when they can’t find it they often protest by breaking things.”
The mass of angry men drifted slowly across the square chanting nonsense phrases and slogans and calls to take action in Kanemi. Qhora didn’t need a translation. “We need to leave!” she shouted over the din.
“We need to stay!” the Italian shouted back. “The boy will come. Trust me.”
So they pressed back as far as they could behind the shrine of the smiling fat man and gripped their weapons, and waited.
The mob surged left and right, sending little bands of men to shout at the merchants and overturn their tables, and knock down their awnings, and since the awnings were all lashed together soon the entire market was in chaos as every stall tumbled sideways and fell on the people beneath them.
Glass shattered, pottery shattered, and stonewares shattered.
Shouting and more shouting, and screams, and faintly some sobbing.
Qhora made herself as small as she could behind the stone pillar of the shrine and wrapped her fingers tightly around Enzo’s triquetra hanging around her neck and asked his three-faced God to let her survive the next few minutes.
Father, Mother, and Son.
Slowly, and with several false starts in different directions, the mob moved on. They continued in the same direction as before, across the square and down the next street, and a quarter of an hour after it all began it was all over.
Qhora stood up and surveyed the tattered remains of the market with a vague hatred of all the barbarian peoples of the east, of their mad selfishness, of their apparent inability to feed and clothe themselves without someone else giving them work to do.
Stupid people.
One by one, the merchants picked themselves up and shoved their awnings up and pulled their tables up, and soon the market was restored, albeit with a bit more jagged trash scattered under the kiosks.
And then the boy came back.
He chatted with Salvator for less than a minute before scampering off with a fistful of shining coins, leaving Qhora with a vague sense of unease. Her Espani was immaculate and her Mazigh was good, but her Italian and Hellan were terrible and she knew nothing of the many languages of the Eranian Empire. And even here in Numidia, the Mazigh accent was so different that she couldn’t tell what anyone was saying. She didn’t have to ask whether Mirari understood what the boy had said. The masked girl had spent most of her life alone in an abandoned Espani silver mine.
“Well?” She squinted at Salvator.
“Well, I was right. A one-eyed woman and a Mazigh gunslinger are easy marks, particularly to a young boy. Or more precisely, to several dozen young boys.” The Italian gestured to the street. “Our friends are in a cafe a few blocks from here, and apparently they are talking about finding transportation to Alexandria. But the riots have shut down the eastbound trains, so we may be in a bit of luck.”
“Then we have to catch them, now!” Qhora put one hand on Salvator’s back, partly to make sure she didn’t lose him in the crowd and partly to propel him faster toward their destination. They wove around carts and oxen and zebras and even a pair of ostriches that momentarily reminded Qhora of her giant Wayra. But only a little. They wound through the crowds, choking on dust and spices, and stumbling around piles of dung and puddles of blood and sweat, until Salvator pulled them aside and pointed down the street. “There.”
The cafe looked like any other building. Pale clay walls, a narrow door, and a single small window of tinted glass. Qhora gripped her knife. “Let’s go. And this time we don’t let anyone…”
The door of the cafe opened and the one-eyed woman stepped out, slipping on her white jacket and flipping her long black hair out over its collar. The Mazigh gunman followed, squinting at the bright sky. The swordsman in green came out last and led the others away down the street.
“Quickly!” Qhora jogged after them, narrowly avoiding the countless people and wagons and animals thronging the street. She closed the distance slowly, trying to form a plan of attack. The Aegyptian was farthest away with the other two obscuring him. She had to get around them. She had to get close to him. Qhora scanned the street ahead for some obstruction, some funnel, some distraction that might rearrange her field of battle.
The Aegyptian turned a corner and his companions followed. As Qhora approached the corner, a piercing white light blinded her and she shaded her eyes with her hand.
It’s the sun on the sea. The Middle Sea. We’re at the harbor. Boats. No!
She dashed around the corner only to see that her prey had already crossed the road a block ahead and were striding down a long pier toward a small steamer. Qhora tore across the road with her knife drawn. She had no idea whether Mirari and Salvator were still behind her and she didn’t care. She ran as fast as she could, but the Aegyptian was too far away, already at the gangway, already boarding the steamer. She reached the foot of the pier drenched in sweat and turned to run toward the boat, but a pair of men with long rifles shoved her back and barked, “Private property.”
“No! I need to…to speak to that man who just got on the boat! Please, I need to speak to him!” She folded her hand down to hide her knife in the fabric of her sleeve.
“Private property,” one of the guards repeated. “Private boat. Go away.” Behind him on the pier, a third guard stood up from behind a barrel. He had a pair of old pistols shoved in his belt and a frowning squint on his face.
“Get out of my way!” Qhora shoved toward them, but a firm hand gripped her shoulder.
“My lady.” Mirari appeared beside her. “Perhaps this isn’t wise.”
The third man with the pistols began sauntering toward them. A fourth man stood up even farther down the pier, one hand resting on his short-barreled rifle.
“Your friend is correct,” Salvator said from her other side. “We should withdraw and not trouble these gentlemen anymore.”
“But he’s getting away!” Qhora glared at the tiny figures on the deck of the steamer, straining to discern her husband’s killer from the others.
He’s right there! So close! He’s right there! I’m looking at him!
Qhora yanked forward out of Mirari’s grip, pulling the young woman off balance and stumbling into one of the armed guards.
The guard barked something in Eranian as he dealt a backhanded blow to the side of Mirari’s head. The woman staggered, her face snapping to the side as the ribbons on her mask tore free and her painted porcelain features clattered to the ground.
