| Move, girl!"
She movedAn old woman took her hand and squeezed it, then lifted a hinged counter and Catriana ducked through and dropped to the floor behind itA moment later the hinge swung up again and her heart stopped as a shadow appeared above her holding something long and sharp
"Forgive me," whispered Alais bren Rovigo, kneeling beside her"My father says your hair might give you away when we leave She held up the scissors she carried
Catriana went rigid for a moment, then, closing her eyes without a word, she slowly turned her back on the other womanA moment later she felt her long red tresses gathered and pulledAnd then the long sharp cloth-cutter's scissors rasped cleanly through in a line above her shoulders, severing a decade's growth in a moment in the shadows
There was a burst of noise outside, a clatter and hoarse shoutingIt approached, reached them, went loudly pastCatriana realized that she was shaking; Alais touched her shoulder and then diffidently omega speedmaster diamond withdrew her handOn the other side of the counter the old woman moved placidly about in the shadows of her shopRovigo was nowhere to be seenCatriana's breath came in ragged scourings of air and her right side ached; she must have crashed into something in her wild careenShe had no memory of doing so
There was something lying on the ground beside her feetShe reached down and gathered the thick red curtain of her severed hairIt had happened so fast she'd hardly had time to realize what was being done
"Catriana, I'm so sorry," Alais whispered againThere was real grief in her voice
Catriana shook her headthis is less than nothing," she saidIt was difficult to speakWhat does it matter?" She seemed to be weepingHer ribs hurt terriblyShe put a hand up and touched the shorn remains of her hairThen she turned sideways a little, on the floor of the shop, down behind the counter, and leaned her head wearily against the other woman's shoulderAlais's arms came up and around her replica rolex then, holding her close while she cried
On the other side of the counter the old woman hummed tunelessly to herself as she folded and sorted cloth of many colors and as many different textures, working by the wan light of afternoon as it filtered down to the street in a quarter where the leaning houses mostly blocked the sun
Baerd lay in the mild darkness by the river, remembering how cold it had been the last time he was here, waiting with Devin at winter twilight to see if Catriana would come floating down to them
He had lost the pursuit hours agoHe knew Tregea very wellHe and Alessan had lived here for more than a year off and on after their return from Quileia, rightly judging this wild, mountainous province as a good place to seek out and nurture any slow flames of revolution
They had been principally looking for one man they had never found, a captain from the siege of Borifort, but they had discovered others, and spoken to them, and bound them to their causeAnd tiffany co earrings they had been back here many times over the years, in the city itself and in the mountains of its distrada, finding in the harsh simple life of this province a strength and a clean directness that helped carry them both through the terribly slow, twistingly indirect paths of their lives
He had known the city's maze of streets infinitely better than the Barbadians who were barracked hereKnown which houses could be quickly climbed, which roofs led to others, and which to avoid as dangerous dead-endsIt had been important, in the life they'd led, to know such things
He'd cut south and then east from the market, and then scrambled up to the roof of The Shepherd's Crook, their old tavern here, using the slanting cover of the adjacent woodpile as a springboardHe remembered doing the same thing years ago, dodging the night watch after curfewRunning low and quickly he crossed two roofs and then spanned a street by crawling along the top of one of the ramshackle covered louis vuitton online bridges that linked houses on either side
Behind him, far behind him very soon, he heard the sounds of pursuit being balked by seemingly inadvertent thingsHe could guess what those things might be: a milk-cart with a loose wheel, a quickly gathered crowd watching two men brawl in the street, a keg of wine spilled as it was wheeled into a tavernHe knew Tregea, which meant knowing the spirit of its people too
In a short time he was a long way from the market square, having covered the distance entirely from roof to roof, flitting light-footed and unseenHe could have almost enjoyed the chase had he not been so worried about CatrianaAt the higher, southern fringes of Tregea the houses grew taller and the streets widerHis memory did not fail him though; he knew which ways to angle in order to continue working upward till he came to the house he sought and leaped to land on its roof
He remained there for several moments, listening carefully for sounds of alarm in the street omega speedmaster white below |