Chapter VIII

“What time did you start letting carts in today?”

The man at the gate did not answer at once. He held one leaf open with one hand, using the other to push aside a sack carried by two labourers. The fabric brushed the post and left a damp streak on the wood.

“Before the bell.”

“Which bell?”

“The first.”

Eiran glanced towards the city. The second bell had just fallen silent. The sun was already high, but its light reached between the warehouses only in narrow strips. The mud at the gate was still wet.

“A covered cart. With a pale board on the back. Did it come through here?”

The man stepped aside to let the labourers pass.

“Plenty of carts have boards.”

“This one was new. The rest of the tailboard was dark.”

“Don’t remember.”

The labourers set the sack down beyond the gate. One rubbed his shoulder; the other looked back at the road. The next load was already waiting.

Eiran took out a coin and laid it on the stone beside the post.

The man looked at the money.

“What’s that for?”

“To make you remember for a moment.”

“I’ve been here since the second bell.”

Eiran left the coin where it was.

“Who was here before?”

“The one on the last shift.”

“Where can I find him?”

“Inside or at home. I haven’t checked.”

His nails were cracked. When he rested his hand on the post, the wood pressed back the skin beside his thumb, exposing a shallow, dirty split. The man withdrew his hand and held the gate with his shoulder.

“Do you record the shipments?”

“The deliveries.”

“Where?”

He nodded towards the inside of the warehouse.

A narrow table stood behind two carts. A list lay on it, held down by a metal weight. The man bent over the sheet had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The labourers went up to him one at a time, said something and left. He did not raise his head.

“Can I see the entries?”

“Do you work with the registers?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

Eiran moved out of the way of an empty cart. The horse walked with its muzzle lowered towards the mud. There was no pale board at the back. Eiran watched the tailboard until it disappeared behind the next team.

“I’m looking for a girl.”

The man was still watching the road.

“Haven’t seen her here.”

“I haven’t told you which girl yet.”

“Any girl.”

Eiran waited for the men with another sack to pass.

“They took her during the night. Her face was battered. Her doublet might have been torn. People saw men leading her to a cart.”

He did not give her name.

The gatekeeper looked at him longer than before, then at the table with the list.

“And you want to find her in the delivery records?”

“I want to find the cart.”

“Then ask someone who saw it.”

“I am.”

The man pressed his lips together. Behind him, someone called for him to open the gate wider. He shifted, pushing his shoulder against the wood. Eiran had to make room for him.

A handcart loaded with crates rolled through the gate. One wheel sank into the mud beside the post. A labourer tugged at the handle, cursed and tried again. The gatekeeper levered the wheel up with his boot. Only once the handcart was through did he look at Eiran again.

“They take goods in here. Sacks, barrels. Not girls.”

“But the cart must have gone somewhere.”

“Could have gone farther.”

A cart with empty barrels stopped on the road. The driver leaned out, checked whether he had room and turned round the corner of the warehouse. The tailboard was dark. Water dripped from one barrel, leaving a short line in the mud. The next wheels wiped it out almost at once.

The gatekeeper reached for the coin. He turned it between his fingers and put it away.

Eiran watched his hand.

“I haven’t seen your cart.”

“I know.”

“Then let the men through.”

Eiran stepped back from the post.

He had not seen the entries or found anyone who remembered the pale board. The gatekeeper might have been putting him off. He might also have been telling the truth and simply had nothing to say to him. Eiran looked back once more. The man was already helping to push the next load through.

The wound between his thumb and forefinger made itself felt when he closed his hand. He straightened his fingers. The skin was stiff at the edges of the cut.

He could try to reach the man at the list. He would have to cross the yard in sight of the gatekeeper, who already knew why he had come. He could also go back to the dyehouse and check the paintings.

He looked towards the river.

The boards over the hiding place lay as he had left them. At least they had when he went out. The thought of going back came whenever he did not know what to do next. He would only have to lift the boards, see both paintings and stop wondering for a while.

Then he would have to leave again without Lira.

He walked along the warehouse, in the direction the cart with the barrels had taken.

Beneath an overhanging roof, labourers were stacking rolls of canvas. The bundles lay by the wall, away from the gutter dripping dirty water. Farther on was a narrow wicket gate. Through the opening he could see the backs of buildings and part of a cobbled passage.

Eiran slowed.

A second man stood by the list with a tablet in his hand. He was counting the sacks as they were carried past. Every few moments he glanced at the wicket gate, then looked back at the load. He was not the same man who watched the main gate.

Eiran stopped beside the stack of canvas. From here he could study the passage without standing in front of it.

The cart with the barrels had gone on somewhere. He could no longer hear its wheels. Behind the warehouse, someone was dragging something heavy across stone, but the wall hid it from view.

One of the labourers turned with a bundle in his arms.

“Here.”

Eiran hesitated for only a moment. He slid his uninjured arm beneath the rolled canvas. The weight pulled him sideways; his other hand instinctively supported it from below.

“There. On those.”

He took three steps and set the bundle on the stack. The wound stung. A thin streak of blood gathered on his skin.

The labourer did not even look at him. He was already going back for the next load.

The canvas gave off a sour smell of oil and wet fibre. Eiran kept his fingers on it for a moment. Saeron would have unfolded the edge and rubbed it between his thumb and nail. He would have known whether it could still be dried or had to be thrown away.

Eiran thought of him bent over the table, his head turned towards the window. It was so easy to see him in the studio that for a moment everything else seemed a mistake. Then someone dropped a crate and the man with the tablet turned his head.

Eiran took his hand off the canvas. He wiped the blood on the inside of his sleeve.

He did not know what was happening to Saeron. He had the paintings and what he had seen for himself. He could not yet say how much of it he understood.

At the gate he had given a stranger Lira’s description. In a moment he would have to do it again, to someone else. A few more conversations like that and he would not be the only one who knew whom he was looking for.

He looked at the wicket gate.

The man with the tablet had gone back to counting. Eiran moved with the labourers. At the next stack he broke away from them and walked on without quickening his pace.

No one called after him.

He went through the wicket gate.

It was cooler at the back. Between the walls, the air smelled of wet wood and water standing in shallow channels. Voices came from the front, muffled now by the building. There was no table here, no people waiting beside the goods. Unmarked doors ran along the wall.

Eiran stopped a few steps beyond the passage and looked over his shoulder. Through the wicket gate he could see only the edge of the canvas stack. The man with the tablet had not come to check where he had gone.

He walked on.

Wet sand lay on the nearest threshold. Someone had scuffed it with a boot. One print had survived almost whole; the other broke off at the edge of the stone.

Eiran looked along the passage. Anyone working in the warehouse could have come to this door. The prints told him nothing about Lira yet.

He examined the hinges, then the lock. He did not press the handle.

If he went farther, someone might walk across the sand before he returned.

He knelt beside the threshold, carefully, so as not to disturb the prints. He rested his wounded hand on his thigh.

First he studied the whole print. Then he moved closer to the door, to the one that broke off at the edge.

He could not tell who had left them. He could check the other thresholds, but at every door the same question would return. He needed someone who had seen the cart.

He got up without using his wounded hand. The labourers’ voices still came from the front. He had to go back to asking questions before the men dispersed. He left the threshold.

Eiran had walked past the cat before he recognised its head.

The animal lay beneath an empty bench by the market. Between its front paws was a scrap of paper stuck to the cobbles. It was trying to lick it. The paper lifted with the cat’s tongue and fell back again.

Eiran stopped two steps farther on.

He had come from the warehouses. There, questions about the girl ceased to be heard as soon as he finished asking them. So he had returned to the market by the studio, to the stallholder who knew Lira. He wanted to ask about other people from the market, those who had not been there during their first conversation. Her stall had already been taken down, and she sat on a low stool, sewing up a split sack.

The cat moved farther beneath the bench. Its shoulder blades jutted behind its head, sharp beneath the dirty fur. Eiran remembered that head above the rim of a bowl, broad and sleepy, when Saeron opened the studio before dawn.

He crouched. His legs shook so badly that he had to hold on to the bench.

“Bolek?”

One ear turned towards him. It was intact, with a piece of straw stuck near the edge. The cat did not come out.

Eiran laid his hand on the stone. Too close. Bolek drew back his paws, opened his mouth and made a thin, raw sound.

“All right. I’ll wait.”

He leaned against the wall beside the bench. Water dripped from the roof onto the back of his neck, although the rain had stopped earlier. It had collected between the boards. He pulled his collar away from his neck and looked towards the studio.

From here he could see only part of the wall and the corner of a shutter. He did not intend to go any closer. At the far edge of the market, a man was adjusting a mule’s harness. He had been doing it since Eiran walked between the stalls. He might simply have been adjusting the harness.

Bolek licked the paper again.

Eiran stood and went over to the stallholder.

“Have you any water?”

She did not stop sewing. With her chin she pointed to the jug beneath her stool.

“And something flat.”

The needle stopped in the sack.

“To drink from,” he added.

She gave him a chipped earthenware bowl with no handle. He slipped a coin beneath the ball of thread beside her before she could return to her work.

“For the bowl too?”

“For the bowl too.”

He poured only a little. On the way back, he held the bowl in both hands. The skin beside the cut on his right hand pulled tight whenever he moved his thumb; he spread his fingers and water spilled over the chipped rim. The brown line was still visible. He wiped his hand on his trousers.

He set the bowl by the end of the bench, beyond the reach of his knees.

Bolek first sniffed the stone. Then he stretched out his neck. He drank greedily, with small jerks of his tongue that moved his whole head. Eiran could see his pale chin and the matted fur on his chest. The cream patch had almost disappeared beneath a grey coating.

Up close, the cat smelled like a wet rag left in a closed chest. On one flank, dark stripes disappeared beneath dried mud; on the other, the fur had worn down to short fuzz. Eiran moved the bowl so that the rim would not press into Bolek’s neck.

“Where have you crawled off to?”

He had not touched him yet. He watched his flanks move. He waited for the sound he knew from the studio: a hoarse rumble, usually followed by a demand for food or a place on the stool. Bolek only drank.

At last the man with the mule moved through the market. He stopped the animal at the next stall, then disappeared from Eiran’s sight behind a rolled sheet of canvas. Eiran watched him go. When he looked beneath the bench again, the cat stood with both front paws beside the bowl.

He held out his left hand and let him sniff his knuckles.

The rough tongue passed over his skin. Once, briefly. Bolek raised his head. A bright rectangle between the roofs was reflected in his large olive eyes.

Eiran was looking into them when he felt cold beneath his belly.

A knot in a board was right in front of him. Dust and a crumb of dried paint lay in the dark hollow. A rag hung above his head, too high for him to reach. It moved. Farther on stood a leg of Saeron’s table, with frayed string wound round it near the floor.

“Bolek.”

His master’s voice came from above.

A hand appeared beneath the tabletop. A broad smear of pale paint marked one finger. Eiran wanted to get up and ask where they were keeping him, but the weight of his body stayed low. Relief came so suddenly that for a moment he stopped trying to speak.

The hand withdrew before he could see the face.

The ground was smooth and cold now. It smelled of water, ash and wet wool drying too close to a fire. The bowl rocked on its uneven base. With every movement it struck the floor: two short knocks, the second quieter than the first.

“Bolek. Come on.”

A different voice, lower, rough on the last sound. A boot stopped beside the bowl. Someone crouched; thick woollen cloth brushed the stone.

Eiran tried to brace himself on his hand.

He could not find it.

A young man knelt above him. His coat was open, its collar darkened by a patch of water. His hair fell into his eyes. He pushed it aside with the inside of his wrist, then leaned a little closer.

It was his own movement.

He saw his own face so close that he could count the fine cracks in the lower lip. The mouth moved.

“Bolek?”

He heard himself, though nothing stirred in his throat.

A narrow, pale streak ran behind the kneeling man’s shoulder. Its lower end disappeared beneath the bench, its upper end by the collar. It looked like a crack, but when Eiran searched for its edges, he saw only light.

The bowl scraped across the cobbles.

His knee struck the stone. His right hand was clenched round the rim of the bowl, tilting it. Water ran beneath the bench.

Bolek backed away from it, shaking a wet paw.

Eiran let go of the bowl.

For a moment he did not understand why his fingers were so high, beside his own knee. He rested both hands on the cobbles. He felt a pebble beneath the heel of his left hand, a rough joint beneath his right. The cut stung.

He turned his head.

Behind him was the wall, with a rusty stain beneath a nail driven into a beam. Farther on hung the stall’s rolled canvas. Its edge lifted slightly away from the wall. Nothing shone.

“Break it and you pay for the next one too.”

The stallholder was looking at the bowl. Eiran picked it up and showed her it was whole. Only then did he notice his hand shaking.

“A little more water.”

The woman pointed to the jug with the same needle.

He stood too quickly. He had to catch hold of the edge of the bench. Bolek squeezed past his boot and began licking the spilled water from a hollow in the stone.

Eiran watched him until the rushing in his ears stopped.

Saeron was at the table.

The memory of the voice remained clearer than the woman’s words. Eiran looked up towards the corner of the studio. He knew that table. He knew the string round its leg too; he had once tightened it himself, when the wood dried out and began to wobble. He could go to the door and put his ear against it.

He pulled his hand from the bench.

He remembered his master behind the bars of the holding room. The guard standing at the door.

He went back for water. By the jug, he struggled for a long time with the bowl’s handle, which was no longer there. His fingers found the chipped stump and slipped off before he remembered how he had carried it a moment earlier.

The stallholder put down the sack.

“Have you eaten today?”

“Yes.”

She did not ask when. She only looked at the coin still lying beneath the thread and went back to sewing.

Eiran set the water in front of Bolek. This time he held the bowl from underneath. The cat pushed his head between his hands, as though they were blocking the only thing worth his attention.

Up close, the ridge of his spine was visible. Eiran ran his fingers over the fur, avoiding the worn patch on his flank. Bolek stopped drinking for a moment. He raised a hind leg, scratched clumsily behind his ear and bent over the water again.

Eiran sat back on his heels.

He remembered the cold of the smooth floor, but beneath his nails was dirt from these cobbles. He turned the bowl over. Its base was flat. He set it down carefully; it did not rock.

He covered the cut with his fingers.

From the direction of the river, a hoop rang as it was dropped onto the stones. Bolek flinched, spilled a little water and pressed against his leg. Eiran unfastened his coat. He tried to slip his hand beneath the cat’s belly, but the animal immediately twisted its head towards his wrist.

“I know. Wait.”

He put the skirts of his coat beneath the paws and only then lifted him with the cloth. The cat was heavier than he looked. Eiran adjusted his grip, supported his hindquarters with his forearm and felt claws through his shirt. It hurt. He held him more firmly without pressing him to his chest.

He could not return to the dyehouse by the shortest route. Not after sitting here in full view and calling Saeron’s cat by name.

He went over to the stallholder. Bolek pushed his head out of the coat and sniffed the air above her sack.

“I asked you about Lira earlier.”

“I remember.”

“Who else was at the market when they started looking for her?”

The woman stuck the needle into the sack. She studied the cat, then Eiran’s face.

“Put the bowl down. You can’t hold everything.”

He did so. With the chipped side towards him.

The woman drew the needle from the sack and held it between her fingers.

“Those who came have already left. The cart men are still coming back.”

“From the bridge?”

“Not all of them. One came back that way. I saw him a second time.”

Eiran adjusted the coat beneath Bolek. The cat rested his chin on Eiran’s left forearm; his hind paws were slipping down the cloth. Eiran slid his elbow beneath them and waited until the woman looked at him again.

“What was he carrying?”

“Had it covered.”

“Much?”

The stallholder drove the needle into the seam.

“I didn’t look under the canvas.”

Eiran glanced towards the street he had come along. From here he could see people passing between the stalls. There was no cart.

“What did it look like?”

“A cart.”

He said nothing more about the board. The woman pulled the thread through, held it against the cloth with her nail and examined the section she had sewn.

“Repaired at the back. One board almost white. The rest wet or dirty.”

Eiran felt Bolek’s claws catch in his shirt.

“That’s how it was described to me. A covered cart with a pale board.”

The woman laid the sack in her lap.

“Who?”

“A man who saw them taking a girl to it.”

An empty basket was knocked over by the well. The stallholder waited until the man gathering the scattered sticks had moved away from her stool.

“I didn’t see a girl.”

“I know. Where did it go?”

“To a warehouse. Down that street.”

She drew the needle from the sack and used it to point to the passage between the stalls.

“There’s a gate on the market side. The carts back in there. Too tight to turn round.”

“When did it come back?”

“I was already sitting here with the sack.”

Eiran looked at the folded stall. Asking about a bell would make it no more precise. The woman might have been working like this for an hour or only a few moments.

“Did you see who got down from the cart?”

“The driver. Then they blocked my view of the street. I didn’t count them.”

He had not learnt whether anyone remained beneath the canvas. Eiran did not ask again. By the warehouses he had been looking for a cart that might already have returned to the other side of the market. He had to see the gate.

Bolek shifted, trying to find a place for his paws. Eiran held the coat with his right hand. The cloth pulled at the skin between his thumb and forefinger; he loosened his grip before the cat began to slip again.

The woman was watching his hands.

“Leave him for a bit.”

“Here?”

“By the sacks. It’ll be dry.”

Two baskets stood behind the folded table. The stallholder moved one away from the wall and spread a piece of cloth inside it. Eiran bent down with Bolek, but had to stop and brace his knee against the edge of the table. The woman slipped a hand beneath the cat’s hindquarters and supported him while Eiran drew out his coat.

Bolek turned in the basket. For a moment he felt for the edge of the cloth with his paw, then lay down with his head outside.

Eiran set the bowl on the cobbles beside him.

“How long will you stay here?”

“Until the warehouses close. This seam won’t finish itself.”

“I’ll be back before then.”

“You’ll come back for him. I’ve nowhere to take him.”

He laid a second coin beside the ball of thread. The stallholder took it and put it in her apron pocket.

“I’ll top up his water. If he gets out, look under the bench.”

Eiran looked at the cat. Bolek’s eyes were closed, but one ear moved whenever wheels rumbled in the street.

“That gate. Can you get to it from another side?”

“To the gate?”

“To the street behind it.”

The woman pointed with her thumb behind the folded table.

“Through the delivery yard. There’s another way out on the other side. You can get through while they’re carrying things. Don’t get under their feet.”

Eiran went to the end of the table. Beyond the sacks he saw the entrance to a yard. A man carrying a basket was stepping aside for another returning empty-handed.

He went back for the bowl, though it already stood beside the cat.

His hand stopped above its rim.

“Your water’s there,” the woman said.

He drank from the jug. He had trouble swallowing the first mouthful; he held the next in his mouth longer. He stayed by the stool until his legs stopped trembling. Only then did he buy bread from a seller who had not yet rolled up his canvas. He broke it with his left hand, pressing it against his side.

He ate, watching the entrance to the yard. The last mouthful stuck to the roof of his mouth. He went back for water, finished drinking and set the jug beneath the stool.

Bolek did not lift his head when Eiran left.

From the market, he entered the street she had pointed out. A handcart loaded with sacks stopped outside the gate. A man pulled one leaf open from inside; the delivery man pushed the handcart over the threshold and disappeared after it. For a moment Eiran could see the courtyard.

A cart covered with canvas stood against the wall. There was a pale board in its tailboard.

He walked on before the gate began to close. He saw no people beside the cart, nor what lay beneath the covering. The board might have been the one the porter had spoken of.

Beyond the gate, in the same wall, was a wicket gate. Eiran passed it without stopping. He did not go up to the lock.

The street led to the edge of the market. There he turned between the stalls and returned to the yard the stallholder had pointed out. He let two men carrying a load pass, went in after them and crossed to the other exit. He found himself back on the street beside the wicket gate, farther from the main gate. He examined the passage from this side, then went back the same way.

The stallholder was straightening the cloth by the basket. Bolek had stretched a paw over the rim.

“It was there,” Eiran said.

“The cart?”

He nodded.

The woman went back to the sack. She did not ask about the girl.

Eiran topped up the cat’s water. He now knew how to get back for Bolek in a hurry.

He took a place beside the rolled canvas of a stall. He could see the stretch of street along which anyone coming out of the wicket gate would have to approach the market. He could not see the door itself.

He could go back to the main gate and ask. He imagined describing Lira’s face again to a man who would first want to know who he was to her.

He could not force the gate on his own. He knew of no other place where he could look for Lira now. He moved closer to the edge of the canvas to see more of the street.

He stayed.

He rested his left arm against the wood. He kept his right hand loose. The handcart that had gone into the warehouse did not come back. Only after a while did he realise he was listening for voices by the well too, waiting for them to begin packing up the last stalls.

The driver wanted to know how many books there would be to load.

Savel left him with the cart in the courtyard, telling him not to remove the canvas yet. Before entering, they had had to wait for a delivery man to pull his handcart out onto the street on the market side. The side gate was locked behind them. Beside it, in the wall, was a low wicket gate for pedestrians.

In the room above the stairs, Istran waited by an empty table. He laid a copy of an order on it, bearing the seal of the royal chancery.

Savel read the first lines. The inspection of rooms in use at the riverside warehouses was to begin the following morning. The number of rooms, their contents, the names of those responsible. Those not included in the current lists were to be opened as well.

A short annex was attached to the copy. It compared the warehouse plan with the list of rooms and identified an omitted room beside the lower corridor. Savel went back to the inspection date. In the morning someone would demand that door be opened.

“What have you got downstairs?”

“A girl.”

Savel looked up from the sheet.

“The one who came with the apprentice?”

“Lira. She knows which way he took the panels out. If he starts looking for her, we can get him.”

Another sheet lay on the table. Savel recognised the order he himself had issued to the carrier. Books and clerical supplies. Cargo to be collected before the warehouses closed.

He straightened the folded corner of the paper.

“Why didn’t you tell me this when I ordered the cart?”

“I needed a cart.”

Savel drew the sheet towards him. The carrier’s name was clearly written. Beneath it, space had been left for an acknowledgement of receipt.

“If they stop him for an inspection, he’ll show them my paper.”

“They won’t go through a checkpoint.”

“And if they stop them anyway?”

Istran took a key on a short leather thong from the table.

“First we have to get her out of here.”

He had not answered the question. Savel held the order in place as the thong slid across the sheet. His name remained on the document, whichever route the cart was to take.

“The driver asked about the books.”

“Let him wait in the courtyard.”

“And what am I to tell him when he sees her?”

Istran lowered the hand holding the key.

“You chose him.”

Savel looked at his fingers. For a moment he wanted to hold that hand still before taking the key from it. Istran waited for him to go downstairs.

“To carry books.”

A dull thud came from below. Then the creak of a door and a brief exchange, too indistinct for the words to be made out.

Istran looked towards the entrance.

“We have until the warehouses close. Morning will be too late.”

Savel set down the inspection order. He kept the transport order beneath his hand.

“My men will see this paper if the carrier starts asking for payment.”

“You’ll pay him.”

“For what?”

Istran held out the key again.

“For bringing the cart. You’ll settle the rest after the journey.”

The metal touched Savel’s open palm. Istran did not let go of the thong at once. Savel had to slide his fingers beneath the key to keep it from slipping between them.

“The side wicket gate?”

“Yes. Look out first and see if the street is clear. Then bring the cart closer to the stairs.”

Savel closed his hand. The key was cold against the base of his fingers.

In the courtyard, the driver called something to the man by the main gate. Savel did not hear the answer. He folded the transport order along its existing crease and put it in his pocket. He would not leave it beside the inspection order, within Istran’s reach.

“What state is she in?”

“You’ll see.”

“I want to see her before they load her.”

Istran looked at him across the table.

“Go down.”

Savel did not move at once. Voices sounded by the door again. Someone below was demanding that the way be cleared.

The carrier was waiting for the promised cargo. They were to bring the girl out to the cart Savel had ordered. He drew the thong through his fingers. Istran went back to the sheet with the seal. With his nail, he aligned its lower edge with the edge of the table.

Savel left the room.

Lira stopped moving her fingers when the footsteps halted outside the door.

Beneath the blanket, a single loop of cord held both wrists. They had tied her earlier, then gone back into the corridor. They were waiting for the cart. One had complained that they had been told to bring the prisoner out before anyone had prepared the way.

Since then, Lira had been working the head of the nail against the knot. The point had already cut her at the base of a finger. She could not look at the wound. She kept her hands beneath the blanket and moved her foot from time to time, as though trying to sit more comfortably.

The loop had loosened enough for her to slip the tip of her thumb beneath the cord. It would go no further.

She could tell the two men apart through the door. One dragged his sole across the stone when he had been standing for a long time. The other coughed before he spat. Since they had locked her in the room, neither had left her alone with the door open.

This time they came for her together.

The bandaged man pulled the blanket aside and checked the binding. Lira spread her wrists, drawing the cord taut. She pressed her thumb against her palm. The nail lay beneath her curled fingers. She felt its wet point dig deeper into her skin when the guard pulled the cord.

The cord pressed into her knuckle.

“Get up.”

She rose slowly. Her knee had stiffened where the skin had been scraped away; for the first few steps she could not bend it properly. The second man threw the blanket over her shoulders and pointed to the door.

They had no sack to put over her head. The first held the loose end of the cord. The second walked behind her, close enough for her to smell his breath when he spoke.

They turned at the end of the corridor. Lira counted the doors, trying not to turn her head. From the left came the smell of boiled groats. From the right, cold air, sharper than what came through the opening above her cot.

The bolt on the outer door slid back with a loud scrape. The first guard pushed the door with his shoulder.

Lira narrowed her eyes.

They came out onto a wooden platform, about as high as the cot. The steps ran to the right, along the wall. A handrail on thick posts stood between them and the courtyard. Lira could fit her head and shoulders beneath it.

The cart was being backed towards the steps. The first guard went down to it without letting go of the cord. A man in a charcoal-grey doublet stood at the wicket gate. He pulled it shut and turned the key. Then he moved an empty basket away from the wall. The key hung from a leather thong.

Lira squeezed the nail, loosened her fingers and tried once more to pull her thumb out from beneath the cord.

It came through at the cost of skin.

She did not pull her whole hand free. She waited until the guard turned towards the cart. The loose end of the cord sagged between them.

“Closer,” said the man by the wall. “The wheel won’t reach the step.”

The carter looked over his shoulder. The guard holding the cord was pointing to the wheel.

Lira crouched beneath the handrail.

The man behind her caught the blanket. He jerked it so hard that the cloth pulled her head back, but it slid from her shoulders when she thrust her hands forwards. Her hand came free of the loosened cord. The loop slipped from her other wrist as Lira fell from the platform.

She landed on her aching knee.

Her cry broke off against her teeth. The nail fell to the ground. The guard above struck his stomach against the handrail and reached down; his fingers brushed the back of her neck.

The guard with the cord moved towards her, but the side of the reversing cart blocked his way. He dropped the cord and ran round it.

Lira braced herself against a post and stood. The wicket gate was only a few steps away; she took shorter ones on the injured side.

The man in the charcoal-grey doublet lifted the key.

Vell came through the open door behind the platform.

“Savel. Don’t open it.”

The key stopped at the lock.

The wicket gate was shut. Lira slipped her fingers between the wood and the stone. Wheels rumbled on the other side.

Savel looked over her head. He must have seen Vell.

Then he turned the key.

The gate gave way, revealing a strip of cobbles. Lira squeezed through sideways. Behind her she heard boots clattering on the steps and felt the gate strike her heel.

In the street, she nearly went under a wheelbarrow. She braced herself against its side, pushed away and turned towards the market. Only behind the first stall did she allow herself to hold her knee. Blood was seeping through the cloth.

Someone ran out through the wicket gate.

Lira let go of her leg. Instead of running down the middle of the passage, she slipped beneath the hanging canvas of an empty stall. She emerged low to the ground on the other side, between the folded legs of tables. She stood only where the row of stalls hid the warehouse’s side exit.

She could taste the skin she had bitten when she fell.

She did not slow until the next turning.

The first thing Eiran saw was a hand resting against the corner.

The girl came sideways from behind the stall, with one leg held back. Her doublet was torn at the shoulder. When she lifted her head, he recognised her face.

He pushed away from the wood and moved towards her so quickly that the canvas caught his shoulder. For a few steps his legs did not shake. He wanted to say her name, but Lira had already seen him.

“They’re coming,” she said.

He caught her forearm with his right hand. The wound opened as he tightened his grip; his hold gave way before he could draw her closer.

Lira looked at his hand.

“The other one.”

He offered his left arm. She caught it above the wrist and rested some of her weight on it. Through the tear at her knee he saw blood.

“This way.”

He pointed to the passage between the folded tables. He knew the way from here to the stallholder and the entrance to the yard. Lira turned her head towards the street she had come from.

Someone called out beyond the corner. Eiran could not make out the words. A man standing by an empty stall moved a rolled canvas aside and looked beneath the table.

Lira pulled at his sleeve.

They moved.

He tried to walk faster, but her shorter stride checked him each time she shifted her weight. She turned her foot slightly outwards. Eiran slowed and moved closer so that she would not have to reach so far for his arm.

At the next table his right hand instinctively sought the edge. His fingers gave way before they found support. Lira stopped beside the board and held his sleeve.

Lira took the weight off her knee, resting her hip against the table. From the street came the scrape of a bench being moved. Eiran wanted to go on, but saw that the girl had not yet put her foot down.

He waited. When she nodded, he offered his arm.

By the stallholder’s sacks, the bowl stood where it had before. Bolek lay in the basket with a paw over the rim. The woman had folded the sack she had been mending; it lay across her knees.

At the sight of Lira, she rose from her stool.

“Not here.”

Eiran looked back between the tables.

“They’re following her. We need to go through the yard.”

“Go through. You’re not hiding with me.”

She pointed towards the folded stall. Lira let go of Eiran and leaned against the wall beside the sacks. She placed her good leg beneath her, leaving the injured one slightly bent. She watched the entrance to the yard.

Eiran reached for the cat.

The stallholder slid her hands beneath his body and hindquarters. She supported him while Eiran slipped his left forearm beneath him. Bolek spread his paws, seeking purchase. With his right hand Eiran held only the edge of his coat; he could not close his fingers any tighter.

The woman did not let go of the cat until his weight rested on Eiran’s arm.

Eiran drew him against his chest. Bolek dug his claws into the cloth beside the collar and put his head out.

“Leave the bowl,” said the stallholder.

Lira left the wall. She took a step, but on the second had to find support again. Eiran held his right hand out to her. The girl looked at the cut and caught the edge of the table.

“I’ve got it.”

He stayed beside her, holding Bolek. The cat shifted, pushing a hind paw between his coat and shirt. Eiran adjusted his forearm. For a moment he could see only fur beside his own face.

When he raised his head, Lira was looking over his shoulder.

A cart laden with sacks was coming from the well. The carter kept to the edge of the market, close to the entrance to the yard. People gave way to the wheels; one of the delivery men drew an empty basket back, making room beside the wall.

Eiran knew this stretch. Beyond the entrance, they could reach the other exit, onto a street farther from the warehouse gate. But first they had to leave the table and cross an exposed strip of cobbles.

The bandaged man appeared at the junction between the stalls. He stopped beside a man rolling up a canvas. Eiran could see only his profile and a hand pointing towards the street.

Lira gripped the edge of the table.

“Wait.”

Eiran looked at the entrance. Two men passed through it with empty baskets. The way was clear.

“We can go now.”

Lira raised her hand. She was not looking at him. She brought one foot closer to the other, preparing to move away from her support.

The cart passed between them and the junction. Its side hid the bandaged man’s face, but beneath it Eiran could still see the cobbles and someone’s boots.

Lira let go of the table.

He moved with her.

For the first few steps, she kept to the edge of the folded stall. Then she had to step onto the cobbles. Eiran walked close to her uninjured side. Bolek shifted his weight towards the back of his arm; instead of hurrying, Eiran held his elbow against his body so that the cat would not slip from his coat.

Lira touched his sleeve. She kept going in short steps, her mouth tightening each time she put weight on the injured leg.

The cart was about to pass the entrance. Behind its tailboard, the corner of a stall came into view.

Eiran did not look back until Lira reached the wall on the other side. Then, through the gap between the sacks and the wheel, he saw a strip of the market. Someone walked along it towards the well. He did not know whether the bandaged man was still standing at the junction.

They entered the yard.

Lira stopped only long enough to change her support. She pressed her palm against the wall, shifted her weight onto her good leg and went on. Eiran had to match his stride to hers.

Two men were carrying a load through the passage. He stepped back against the wall to let them pass. Bolek jerked his head towards the sack as it moved past. His claws pulled at the cloth on Eiran’s chest.

The other exit was open. Through it he could see part of the street and the wheel of a wheelbarrow standing farther on.

Lira reached the edge of the wall before him. She looked out, then moved aside to make room for him. Eiran looked towards the warehouse. From here, the corner hid it; voices from the market still carried through the yard.

“Right,” he said.

Lira went first, keeping her hand against the wall. Eiran followed her out. After a few steps, she had to stop in a doorway.

He stood beside her. He wanted to offer her his arm, but Bolek was lying on it.

Lira saw the movement.

“Just more slowly.”

He nodded. He waited until she took her hand from the wood, then left the doorway with her.

Lira disappeared through the wicket gate. Savel still held the key in the lock when the bandaged man ran from behind the cart, knocking into an empty basket. The other came down from the platform with the blanket bunched in his fist.

“After her,” Istran said from the top of the steps. “Bring her back alive.”

Savel took out the key and stepped aside. The guards ran into the street. One turned towards the market; the other stopped a passer-by and immediately let him go.

The wicket gate swung on its hinges. Savel held it so that it would not strike Istran as he approached.

“You heard me.”

“Yes.”

Istran waited. Savel knew that look, usually followed by a question asked more quietly than any other. This time the question did not come.

“Give me the key.”

The leather thong caught on a button at his sleeve. Savel freed it and laid the key in Istran’s open palm. For a moment the metal rested on both their fingers. Istran withdrew his hand first.

“She was meant to lead me to the apprentice.”

“Then you should have put her on the order.”

Savel took the sheet from his pocket. Istran did not look at it.

“You know what we’re looking for.”

“I know what you told me to sign.”

Istran turned towards the street. A shout came from the market, followed by several people speaking at once. Neither guard was in sight.

Savel folded the paper along its old creases. He could have thrown it at Istran’s feet. But the carter had to be paid, and the cancelled transport had to be accounted for.

“Didn’t she give you the location?” he asked.

Istran looked at him.

“I will not discuss her testimony with you.”

Savel lowered the sheet.

A thin official appeared in the doorway above the platform. He held two folded sheets and looked from Istran to the empty cart. Istran beckoned him over.

“The transport lists, sir.”

Savel held out his hand. Since their conversation about the missing panels, he had been helping to check these lists.

Istran took both sheets before the official could decide whom to give them to.

“From today, bring them only to me.”

The official nodded.

“I need that information,” Savel said.

“You will get what concerns your carriers.”

“My principals don’t only ask about carriers.”

Istran slipped the sheets into his pocket. Savel put away the order and turned to the official.

“Bring a quill and two clean sheets.”

Istran’s hand stopped at his pocket.

“Two?”

“One for the carrier. The other stays with me.”

Savel watched him, waiting. Istran turned towards the steps.

A short, rusty nail lay in the sand beneath the platform. Istran picked it up through a handkerchief. There was a little blood on the point; farther along, a fibre from the cord or the blanket.

He examined the platform, the empty loop abandoned beside the steps and the door to the accounts room.

“Touch nothing in there until I return.”

The official stepped back to let him pass on the steps.

Savel instinctively started after Istran. At the first step he put his hand on the rail. He wanted to call to him before he went into the room.

He stopped. Istran went on.

Savel held the rail a little longer. Then he let go and returned to the cart. Calls still came from the street. He did not know how far the girl had managed to get.

The carter cleared his throat.

“Am I to wait?”

Savel spread the order on the side of the cart.

“No. I’ll pay for bringing the cart here.”

The official brought the sheets, the quill and the inkwell. Savel slid the order beneath one of the sheets, leaving the part with the carrier’s name and the description of the transport requested uncovered.

He entered the date and place at which the account was drawn up, then referred to the order for the transport of books and clerical supplies. On the next line he wrote: cargo not released.

The carter leaned over the side of the cart.

“For waiting too?”

Savel found the amount on the order and pointed to it with the tip of the quill.

“Yes, as agreed.”

He took out the money. The carter counted it in his palm and put it away. Savel added the amount and confirmation of payment for bringing the cart and waiting. He did not fill in the space for receipt of the cargo on the original order.

He moved the completed sheet aside. On the second he repeated the date, the place, the reference to the order and the account. He compared the two texts, holding their edges against the uneven side of the cart. Beneath each he signed his name.

The carter read his copy. He checked the amount, folded the paper and tucked it behind his belt. Then he went to the horses.

Savel waited for the ink on the second sheet to dry a little. The door above the platform creaked. He looked up, but only the official stood in the doorway, back for the inkwell.

He returned the quill. He folded his own copy of the account and slipped it into his pocket with the order, on which the space for acknowledgement of receipt was still blank.