Yashim shifted focus to look at the vats closest to him. The colours in the steam were less vivid, perhaps because of the way the light caught them; it was only further out, as the pillars of steam overlapped, that they showed a rainbow iridescence. Some of the nearer vats appeared to be empty.
Yashim edged closer on bended legs, holding up the skirt of his cloak. He stepped out onto the clay. It was surprisingly slippery, beaded with droplets of steam and fat, and he moved cautiously, planting his feet with elaborate care. He could feel the heat from the vats but, yes, there were empty vats among them. They were drained, he now saw, by means of a wooden bung attached to a chain which ran up the inside of each vat and was secured by a metal loop at the rim. He had a vision of the killer dropping down into one of them: like the soldier lying dead in the cauldron at the stables, long ago.
He reached into his cloak and unsheathed the little dagger at his belt. For a moment its blade glinted fiercely in the weird light, and then dulled as the vapour which filled the air condensed on the cold metal. He held it out, the handle beneath his thumb and nestling into his curled fingers, using it like a pointer.
He put one foot on top of the grating, feeling a rush of hot air up his leg; he tried it with his weight and felt the grating rock, with an almost imperceptible metallic sound. He pushed again, a little harder. Again the same slight yielding to pressure, but this time the metal grille gave a distinct knock against the frame.
Yashim stepped back and crouched down to inspect the grating. It was about twenty inches in diameter, set with rounded iron bars about two inches apart. He raised his head, considering. There had been so little time to hide. Crouched in one of the empty vats, the killer would be caught like a bear in a pit: it would be only a matter of time before Yashim found him, and then…
He put out his hand and pushed the far side of the grating, watching it rock very slightly away from him. It was not properly bedded at one side, and by rocking it to and fro he worked out the pivotal point. Yashim ran his fingers along the edge and gave a grunt as his fingers closed on a small twist of cloth no bigger than a fingernail that protruded from the joint.
He stood up and stepped back, carefully, to take a flaming torch from a bracket in the wall. Once more he scanned the tannery, but nothing moved. By the grating he knelt down and thrust the torch against the grille.
Tunnels. These grilles had to be more than air-vents: they must also act as access-points to a network of tunnels for the tanners to feed the fires that boiled the water in the vats. The killer could have dropped down here into the tunnels: in his haste, though, a corner of his sleeve must have caught in the join as he replaced the grille overhead.
It has already been said that Yashim was reasonably brave: but that was only when he stopped to think.
Without a moment’s reflection, he heaved up the grille and swung his legs into the pipe. The next moment he was crouched at its base, about five feet below, peering in astonishment at what was revealed in the flickering light of his torch.
[ 62 ]
The assassin hung for a moment on all fours, to catch his breath. Strong: yes, he was very strong. But the running was for a younger man, perhaps; a man in training. He had not trained that way for ten years.
Move, he told himself. Crawl away from under the grating. For the first time in forty-eight hours he felt tired. Jinxed.
The mission had failed. He had waited for hours in that room, focusing on the door. Once or twice he had tried the latch, to see how long it took for the door to swing open. Darkness had come: his element.
He had heard her coming. He saw the light approach, watched with satisfaction as a finger snaked in to flick the latch. His hand coiled around the weight at the end of the twine.
And then, in the darkness, it had all gone wrong. The dancer stepped back, not forwards. The weight sliced through the empty air, and then the crashing. It would have been possible to go on—but someone had come.
If there’s any risk of being discovered, abort.
The assassin began to move again, silently, creeping away from the grating down the sluice. Forget the failure, he thought. Hide. Go to earth.
The movement consoled him. His breathing softened. Rest now. No one would follow him down here, and later he could rectify his mistake. Sleep now.
Sleep among the altars.
Each altar topped by a glowing brazier.
The air was fetid and warm.
The air was full of sleep.
The assassin squirmed through a low arch and found a clear space on the warm brick. He also found a day-old loaf of bread on the ledge of a brazier and stuffed a piece of it into his mouth. He took the stopper from an earthenware bottle and drank a long draught of warm water.
At last he stretched out on the warm bricks, clasping his hands behind his head.
And then, looking up at the curving belly of the vats, the assassin screamed.
[ 63 ]
Yashim saw he had been wrong about the spaces that lay below the vats. From what he could make out, a succession of air-wells all dropped to a huge and very low chamber, raised on shallow brick vaults. Between the vaults, at regular intervals, wide braziers were set on stacks of bricks to heat the tiled cauldrons overhead: in the dim and smoky light the cauldrons were suspended like the teats of a monstrous she-devil.
His eyes ran from the wooden bungs which hung like nipples to the brickwork that composed the floor on which he now crouched. In a way he had been right. He had expected a maze of tunnels, but what he found was the impress of a maze, as if the floor of the tannery had been scored by a huge wheeclass="underline" as if the tunnels he had imagined had been abandoned when they were only a few inches high. They were thick with coloured grease.
He shuffled forwards, the torch in one hand, the knife in the other. He felt the grease pile up beneath his toes: looking down, he saw it gathered in a slick ridge at his feet. Looking ahead, he saw that the grease was actually moving sluggishly towards him. Someone had already sloshed it aside, in a faint but unmistakable track, and it was quietly oozing back, revealing its direction as it rolled.
Struck by an idea, he inched back to the air-vent and stood up. He put the torch on the ground above his head and gripped the edge of the grating, hauling himself back into the not-so-fresh air.
For the next five minutes, Yashim crept this way and that around the vats. He went to the far end of the tannery and removed the grating, thrusting his torch down the pipe. He watched the oozing grease for a few moments.
He went towards the centre of the tannery and fiddled with a rope attached to one of the derricks used for raising and lowering bundles of skins into the vats.
When he was ready, he put a hand on one of the chains that stretched out of the vats and yanked on it.
Then he dived for another, and another, pulling with all his might.
And somewhere in the distance, as if from underground, he heard a scream.
[ 64 ]
The assassin saw the first bung disappear.
Ten years before, he had watched a wall collapse on top of him, and counted that moment an eternity.
Now, for an eternity, he made no sound.
For an eternity he scrambled for an explanation.
And he rolled aside only when the bung was replaced by a black tube of scalding fat and water which exploded onto the brick.
It ricocheted onto his back, the hot fat clinging like needles.
And he screamed.
Spouts of heavy boiling dye erupted all around him. The culvert he lay in was suddenly filled with swirling liquid. In terror he ploughed his hands into the scalding torrent and fought his way to an opening. He reached up, placed his scalded hands on the grating, and heaved.