them, clearing a space among the onlookers as the procession passed, and was tinkering away with two more.
It was a long way down.
People broke away from the fight, screaming. In those first few moments of action when all was confusion, no one turned instantly to assist Barty. But he did look a sight, clad in his old clothes, bedraggled, red-faced, swearing away, thoroughly worked up. One might almost be forgiven for believing he was the murderer and the soberly-attired assassins his victims. They had removed their steel masks and now wore only the polite public half-mask often seen on Kregen, a useful adjunct to gracious living, as it is said with some irony.
Whatever might be said, in a mur or two he’d be dead.
The angle of the aqueduct had taken me out farther into the center of the Lane. Directly below passed a cart loaded with sharp-looking objects under a tarpaulin, the edges creased and unfriendly looking. To jump down on that would invite a punctured hide and a snapped backbone. Further along swayed the palanquins with their colored awnings. I eyed them savagely. The largest one — of course. It had to be the biggest and best to take the weight and the velocity of my fall.
I ran along the edge of the brickwork, ducked out of the archway right over the palanquin below, and launched myself into space. As I jumped I saw the soldiers at last break ranks and advance on Barty and the assassins. Just before I revolved in the air, falling, I glimpsed the assassins running off, and Barty twisting in the grip of a Deldar.
Then, rotating, I came down with an ear-splitting crash on the striped awning. It ripped. I went on through trailing tatters of cloth. The blue and green striped material had broken my fall and I landed with a thump on the wooden bed of the palanquin. I spat out a chunk of the blue and green banded cloth, and a strip of the white striping between the colors caught in my teeth. I ripped it out furiously and dived for the cloth-of-gold curtains.
The three women in the palanquin stared at me, petrified.
I took in their appearance at a glance — two handmaidens and a great lady. She was half-veiled, and she looked lushly beautiful, and dominating, and her color was rising and she was getting all set to spit out a mouthful of invective. You couldn’t really blame her. Here she was, sitting quietly in her palanquin being taken along with all her people, and some hairy odoriferous blanket-coated oaf falls in from the sky.
I became aware of my obnoxious pong as the stink cut through the scents of the palanquin.
The Womoxes carrying the poles had yielded to the sudden extra weight; but one pole broke and the whole lot came to a shuddering crash, tip-tilted on a corner. The great lady was flung across the cloth-of-gold canopied space. She fell into my arms. I couldn’t move. Her dark, intense face wrinkled up, the whiteness of the skin emphasized by the kohled eyes and the artful patch of color in the cheeks. Her flared nostrils widened. Her mouth, hidden by the veil but its outline visible as the silver gauze pressed back, curved down.
“You stink!”
“Get off, lady, I am in a hurry—”
“You dare—”
Somehow the longsword had not done any damage to the occupants of the palanquin — yet. I tried to twist it around to make it safe. She was screaming invective at me now and I half-turned to shove her off, so that she saw me. Only then I realized the medium-sized brown beard had been ripped off somewhere along the way.
She saw my face.
“Oh,” she said.
“I am in a hurry, lady. Men are trying to kill me and I must—”
“Yes, you must run away. Well, let me sit up and you may run away — run to the Ice Floes of Sicce, and you will.”
“Mayhap I will,” I said.
She struggled to sit up against the slope of the palanquin. Her two handmaidens went on screaming. A soldier stuck his head in the opening of the cloth-of-gold curtains and saw me.
Instantly his rapier whipped in.
The
It was a long way down.
People broke away from the fight, screaming. In those first few moments of action when all was confusion, no one turned instantly to assist Barty. But he did look a sight, clad in his old clothes, bedraggled, red-faced, swearing away, thoroughly worked up. One might almost be forgiven for believing he was the murderer and the soberly-attired assassins his victims. They had removed their steel masks and now wore only the polite public half-mask often seen on Kregen, a useful adjunct to gracious living, as it is said with some irony.
Whatever might be said, in a mur or two he’d be dead.
The angle of the aqueduct had taken me out farther into the center of the Lane. Directly below passed a cart loaded with sharp-looking objects under a tarpaulin, the edges creased and unfriendly looking. To jump down on that would invite a punctured hide and a snapped backbone. Further along swayed the palanquins with their colored awnings. I eyed them savagely. The largest one — of course. It had to be the biggest and best to take the weight and the velocity of my fall.
I ran along the edge of the brickwork, ducked out of the archway right over the palanquin below, and launched myself into space. As I jumped I saw the soldiers at last break ranks and advance on Barty and the assassins. Just before I revolved in the air, falling, I glimpsed the assassins running off, and Barty twisting in the grip of a Deldar.
Then, rotating, I came down with an ear-splitting crash on the striped awning. It ripped. I went on through trailing tatters of cloth. The blue and green striped material had broken my fall and I landed with a thump on the wooden bed of the palanquin. I spat out a chunk of the blue and green banded cloth, and a strip of the white striping between the colors caught in my teeth. I ripped it out furiously and dived for the cloth-of-gold curtains.
The three women in the palanquin stared at me, petrified.
I took in their appearance at a glance — two handmaidens and a great lady. She was half-veiled, and she looked lushly beautiful, and dominating, and her color was rising and she was getting all set to spit out a mouthful of invective. You couldn’t really blame her. Here she was, sitting quietly in her palanquin being taken along with all her people, and some hairy odoriferous blanket-coated oaf falls in from the sky.
I became aware of my obnoxious pong as the stink cut through the scents of the palanquin.
The Womoxes carrying the poles had yielded to the sudden extra weight; but one pole broke and the whole lot came to a shuddering crash, tip-tilted on a corner. The great lady was flung across the cloth-of-gold canopied space. She fell into my arms. I couldn’t move. Her dark, intense face wrinkled up, the whiteness of the skin emphasized by the kohled eyes and the artful patch of color in the cheeks. Her flared nostrils widened. Her mouth, hidden by the veil but its outline visible as the silver gauze pressed back, curved down.
“You stink!”
“Get off, lady, I am in a hurry—”
“You dare—”
Somehow the longsword had not done any damage to the occupants of the palanquin — yet. I tried to twist it around to make it safe. She was screaming invective at me now and I half-turned to shove her off, so that she saw me. Only then I realized the medium-sized brown beard had been ripped off somewhere along the way.
She saw my face.
“Oh,” she said.
“I am in a hurry, lady. Men are trying to kill me and I must—”
“Yes, you must run away. Well, let me sit up and you may run away — run to the Ice Floes of Sicce, and you will.”
“Mayhap I will,” I said.
She struggled to sit up against the slope of the palanquin. Her two handmaidens went on screaming. A soldier stuck his head in the opening of the cloth-of-gold curtains and saw me.
Instantly his rapier whipped in.
The
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