Chapter Fifteen
She was being hunted and she could feel it crawling beneath her skin, her very bones alive.
Turning off one street and down another and then yet another. The heavy dust of this place rising and breathing it and tasting it there on her tongue. Each street smaller than the last and the buildings closing in and in the fronts of those buildings men and women opening shops or windows and watching her pass in her filth and always running. Feeling as if behind her the castle itself gave chase and swelled and threatened to consumer her and she could not put enough distance between them.
In time she could not breathe and she stopped broken and terrified in a shadowed corner at the end of a street. Marking first her exit over a short stone wall, should she need it, and then crouching and breathing and watching the end of the street. Nothing of note there but still watching each one who passed and waiting for him to throw off his workers' cloak and put down the hood and grin in that twisted way and draw his sword. But they were just workers passing and she watched them and slowly her breathing evened and she could think again.
She was lost and thought that may be best for how could she be found if she herself did not know where she was? She looked up and there were two tall buildings beside her with open windows and wooden shutters and wash hanging in the breeze and she could not see the castle. The buildings shorter on the other side and running away toward the docks. Now in this waiting she could smell the water again and she stood and began making her way toward it.
Walking this time. Forcing herself to keep pace. For everyone saw a woman fleeing with wide eyes and bare feet and no one at all saw a woman in old rags walking like the others about her and only one who knew her could put her face with anything else.
This such a stark difference from the bath and the dress and the court. The cool marble floor, the sconces smoking softly and all that smoke like a river to the vents. The glasses of wine without end and platters of food uneaten.
She reached a line with clothes hanging and went past and looked and came back and left again and cursed herself and went and took one of the shirts off of the line. Covered the shackles where they still hung with the few links of chain about her wrists. The skin there raw and broken and bleeding. She wrapped the shirt around one wrist and tied it and then clasped her hands in front of her so it covered both and again made herself walk slowly and only half succeeded.
When she passed a woman walking alone with a basket she nodded to her and stepped slightly in front of her. The woman looking up and blinking as one not accustomed to this or perhaps dwelling in some other thought.
“I'm looking for a tavern,” she said. “The Golden Head.”
The woman just looked at her for a moment, then shook her head. “I don't know it.”
“Thank you.” Trying to leave. Already lingering too long.
“But it's not here.”
“What?”
The woman looked at her and down to the shirt at her wrists and back to her eyes. Pursed her lips. “Nothing around here called that.”
Arisine watched her go and twice the woman looked back at her and her eyes darting and then she stepped into a small shop and began speaking. About the day's work or the harvest or a prisoner queen in the streets. Arisine hurried on and took the next two turns without reason and looked over her shoulder the whole time and did not see the woman again and never would. But she felt her there behind her for a long time.
It was two hours walking in the rising heat before she found it. One man knew the street and then another knew how far and she walked it all and stood far down the street near a cart of furs and looked at it. Keeping the furs between her and the road and watching always the street in front of her and once three spearmen rode by and everyone moved out of the street and she turned and busied herself with the furs as if they were hers and listened to the horses and they went on without changing down the street and were gone. Only after long-burning minutes did she step back out and look again at the tavern.
A small dark building, all of rock on one wall and the others timber. A wooden door at the street and windows with the shutters closed. The road in front heavily traveled. The docks quite close now and most of those going in and out sailors from the ships and some traders and once an old man was thrown out and lay in the street looking about as if he did not know where he was.
She watched it all for a long time and hoped to see him come and go in and knew she wouldn't and finally a man came for the cart and tipped his head to look at her as he walked up and she knew it was time. Stepping away from the furs and walking down the street and almost going past it and then cursing herself again and turning and going in. The heavy oak door swinging before her and the creak of the old hinges and then the warm and heavy air inside and the smell of ale.
He was a long time coming in and she had no money and they were watching her from the bar but she did not know what to do and sat looking about as if waiting for someone. No lie in that and yet still feeling as if they were going to come over at any time and stand her up and take a length of chain and bind together the shackles and begin walking her back to the castle.
But they did not and at last he came in and stood in the door blinking and then looked at her and looked away and went to the bar and sat. The barman came over and nodded and slid down two mugs of ale and he in turn pushed a stack of coins across the bar and picked up the mugs and turned and walked over and sat at the booth facing her. Setting the mugs down on the table and the condensation already dripping on the outsides.
“God,” he said.
“I don't know what I'd have done if you didn't come.”
“God,” he said again and picked up the mug and drank long and heavy and set it back down. An aging man now but still in his build some of the knight that he had been and still was in title. The wars long past and all about his face. A scar drawing down from his temple, the marks from the sun when they'd marched out two weeks from Hai'njal in the desert sand and fought along the dry and dead banks of what had been a river. The gray now moving through hair that had been dark when last she'd seen him.
He looked at her. His hands cupped on both sides of the mug. She had not touched hers.
“When?” he said.
“Today. This is the first place I came.”
“All these years.”
She looked at him and remembered that time. It had felt unreal as it happened and even as she knew it was happening. Meeting with him the day before they'd come to her room with swords and waited behind her as she stood looking out over the kingdom and her son had been with them and breathing so loudly in that silence. Telling this man, now the only one she trusted, that they were coming. Him swearing it wouldn't happen and it happening as she had known and nothing to be done to stop it. Too many things in motion already. The great grinding gears of the world.
Or perhaps her own pride then too much to allow her to flee. That pride at least broken and left under the earth, in that dank room with her husband's bones.
“I need to get out of the city,” she said.
“We'll get you a boat.”
“They'll watch the boats.”
“They'll watch everything. Better a boat than the damned gate. The roads.”
“No.” A boat just another cage, this one of lashed wood and tar and sails. She could already see herself cowering in some hold and praying for the rocking as they pushed off from the dock but instead the sound of shouting and boots on the planks above her head and horses huffing and her son yelling something and the boots coming down the stairs and her sobbing there in that darkness as it ended.