. . . . . The wattle and daub coating of the
wall behind me pulled a few sable strands of hair free from their
neat captivity every time I turned my head, but it was nothing that
could be helped. There was quite simply far too much worth watching
to stay still. A bracelet caught the afternoon sun with a gleam of
silver. A flounce of lily pink silk swirled across the cobblestone
street. A red ribbon, dark as freshly-spilled blood, fluttered from a
man's back as he strode among the market stalls.
. . . . . That's the one,
I decided. Never mind that it was trailing from the hilt of a
broadsword strapped across his back; plucking that prize free would
be child's play. I wanted that
ribbon.
. . . . . Beneath my slight
weight, the daubber's scaffolding did not shake or tremble as I
crossed some ten feet above the street, flashing between drapes of
canvas that protected the market-goers from falling clay as it dried.
My belly rumbled a protest that my mark was no flatbread or juicy
pear, but I paid it no heed – the demands of the body were a
distant second to the rush of pursuit. The man was taller than many
in the market by a third again, his wide shoulders cutting a track
through the crowded streets as easily as a chef's knife through melon
flesh. There went my stomach again...
. . . . . As the wooden
supports below me ended, I had to take my eyes from the taunting
ribbon long enough to pull myself to the roof and jump across to the
next building. It was no more than a matter of sixty seconds, but in
that time, the man vanished. A scowl twisted my lips as I scanned the
market, looking for the behemoth among midgets. It was like trying to
track a sand flea! But then a dark shape loomed some half a block
beyond where he ought to have been, and I raced across the rooftop to
catch up.
. . . . . It took two jumps
and one precarious crossing involving a clothes-drying line, but I
caught up to him, and then surpassed him. Planning carefully, I
dropped down from the edge of the rooftop, heels catching on an
awning covering a doorway below. Despite broad daylight, all eyes
were occupied with market goods and I remained as invisible as if
cloaked in night. He would have to pass by here – I need only wait;
the linen merchant's stall across from the building I perched on
along the narrow street would force him close enough.
. . . . . Indeed,
circumstances were in my favor and a knot of women stopped to finger
bolts of fine lawn, cooing over misty blue fabric the likes of which
would never touch my own poor skin clad in rough-spun. The giant man
had to step close to the building to avoid them, and that's when I
leaned out as far as I dared, one hand bracing along the awning's
support as the other stretched forward. Warmth radiated from the sun
shining on his dark, clean-shaven head as he passed just under my
hand and my fingers caught up the red ribbon to unravel its simple
knot as he walked past.
. . . . . A
hand large enough to encompass most of my forearm clamped over my
wrist. He had stopped just beyond the edge of the awning I was braced
against. Before I quite had a thought to what was going on, the
ribbon was tied around my wrist and the titan of a man had lifted me
bodily down from my perch, pulling me along behind him by the other
end of my prize
wrapped in his fist.
. . . . . “No one ever
looks up,” the man quietly stated.
. . . . . My
first instinct was to raise a cry, but I quickly discounted that as
it would bring the attention of the city guard. As it stood, the
guard were jumpy from constant vigilance and I was on at least two
wanted dockets in the city. Perhaps just enough of a fuss to raise
odd looks and shame the behemoth into letting me go? Yes,
that's it. Judging the timing
just right, I stopped at the edge of the next block where a group of
young men surrounded a bladesmith's stall. The ribbon jerked taut and
the giant man halted, turning to look at me. A plain shirt of fine,
sand-colored cambric tucked into heavy, dun-colored linen trousers –
completely at odds with the blackened leather sheath slung across his
chest and the well-wrought broadsword it held. It was only long
after, though, that I noted these things about his appearance, for at
the time all I could see were his eyes – paler than sky, colder
than marble, they fair gleamed from his swarthy face. And they were
narrowed at me.
. . . . . The young men at
the merchant's stall noticed, though, and a hush fell upon them as
they stared and began to mutter amongst one another. “This isn't
right!” I called out, my voice pitched high as I tugged at the
ribbon around my wrist.
. . . . . The muttering grew
louder at my pronouncement, but the pale-eyed giant reached out and
captured my wrist in his grip again. He turned enough to give the
staring men a small shrug of his wide shoulders. “The little
princess believed she could slip out of the house with the doorman
unawares,” he explained.
. . . . . The men at the
stall all snickered and nodded knowingly, turning away from the scene
the pair of us presented. It was absolutely beyond fathoming, but
somehow his words carried more weight than my struggles, and I was
promptly ignored as the swarthy colossus led me to the end of the
block.
. . . . . There, he crowded
his body against me and walked me between two of the stalls into an
alley that – for all my years on the streets in Alamut – I had
never noticed before. Murmurs and shouts and songs from the market
faded into the shadow created by two far-too-close buildings, sound
as hushed as light as I found myself quite alone with the man. My
nose was level with his solar plexus as he hauled the ribbon up in
one hand until I was on tiptoe before him should I want to keep my
hand attached to my arm.
. . . . . “You're used to
not being seen,” he spoke, the timbre of his voice low and quiet.
It was like being whispered to by stone itself. “You take risks
because no one is looking.”
. . . . . “And whose
business is that?” To my pride, there was no tremble in my voice as
I stared up at the man.
. . . . . “The guards', if
I take you to them.”
. . . . . “Do you expect
that to make me beg and protest?”
. . . . . “A
weak woman would.” In the grey half-light of the alleyway, I could
see one of his heavy eyebrows lift in amusement. “Do you know how
to behave when someone is
looking?”
. . . . . I did the only
thing I could, dangling by one hand from his grip. I spat at his
feet.
. . . . . “I will take
that as a 'no.'” Just that fast, the amusement was gone from his
face and his tone, as was the ribbon from my wrist.
. . . . . Dropping back flat
on my feet, I pressed my back against the wall as if two more inches
of space between us would matter. “I could steal a ruby from the
amirzade's palace,” I boasted, pulling the shreds of my
dignity around me.
. . . . . “Could you.”
The giant did not frame his words as a question as he tied the ribbon
back on the hilt of his broadsword. The ends of it floated over his
shoulder, stark against his pale shirt.
. . . . . Stung by the
insult implied, sputtering impotently, I was left standing alone in a
dark alley as the titan of a man vanished back into the market.
. . . . . The sun was
slouching towards another ignominious slide into a horizon made
opaque by the dusts of war when I remembered my belly again. All
afternoon had been spent traversing the market rooftops, idling
unseen in private household gardens, trying to evade the sensation of
a gaze fixed upon the back of my neck. My favorite place to acquire
food was the bakery in the second tier of the market; the shop stall
was sprawling and busy, the scent of bread baking always bringing
crowds clamoring on their stomachs. In such a press of people, it was
simple to palm a sweet roll or sweep a flatbread off a stack and into
a sleeve.
. . . . . Somewhere to my
left, a querulous old woman argued with one of the stall's keepers
over the price of two loaves of fine emmer bread, a luxury when most
could only afford stacks of unleavened millet. While eyes were
elsewhere, no one was watching my hands pass over the stacks of
flatbread as if checking their softness. One piece was half-rolled in
my hands and inside the clay-red sleeve of my rough linen shirt in a
trice, the bread wrapped around my forearm reminding me uncomfortably
of the giant's hand in the same place. Despite great hunger, it never
paid to be too greedy – that simply got one caught – so I turned
away toward the stall's exit.
. . . . . There it was,
hanging over the edge of the awning – the curling red tip of a
ribbon.
. . . . . My
first impulse was to scream and snatch at it, anger rising swift and
sharp as I realized the source of the sensation of eyes on my back
all afternoon. However, all that would gain me was the attention of
the bakery staff and one less piece of flatbread – maybe one less
hand. Knowing the giant must be watching now, I ignored the taunting
ribbon, stopping instead to inspect a basket full of sweet rolls.
When a stall keeper came over to try to sell me one of the rolls, I
demurred politely and headed for the exit and its damnable red
challenge. As I passed under the awning, I reached up as if to smooth
my hair into the heavy sable bun on my crown, though truly I snatched
my fingers higher for the end of the ribbon.
. . . . . It fluttered
silkily over my fingers – a ghost of a caress – and was gone.
. . . . . I did make a small
scene then, stamping my foot in frustration as I spun to look at the
awning. Several market-goers stopped to give me strange looks and I
pasted on a winsome smile. “Sand beetle,” I explained with a
little shrug. There was no giant leaning over the awning with his
ribbon; indeed, there was no one at all who could have placed it
there or removed it so quickly.
. . . . . Fury at being
bested spurred me out of the vicinity, walking as if the Drujani
themselves were on my heels.
. . . . . “Watch it!”
cried one young man as I elbowed him aside and stalked past. I
ignored him. Four blocks later, I was at the edge of the market
district and my fury was spent, the street instincts which had kept
me alive a quarter of a century or so coming back to remind me that I
carried stolen goods in my sleeve and I ought dispose of them
quickly. Shadows fell long and low over the streets as I ambled
casually towards the temple district. Sitting at the base of a statue
commemorating some battle amir or another, I pulled the stolen
flatbread out of my sleeve and began to eat.
. . . . . A horsefly buzzed
past and I swatted at it. It whirled away and returned, wings beating
against the left side of my neck as it settled. I clapped my hand
fast and hard to my neck to squash it, but my hand did not land on a
fly. The red ribbon was trapped between my fingers and the soft skin
below my ear. Scrabbling so quickly I drew blood at my own neck with
my nails, I grasped for the ribbon – only to yank free a lock of my
own hair.
. . . . . Howling in pain
and frustration, I sprang to my feet and whirled, glaring at the
statue as if it was the source of my ills. Perhaps it was... On that
thought, I ran to the right, circling the stone counter-clockwise as
if to reveal my tormentor. I found no one.
. . . . . Cramming the last
of the flatbread in my mouth hastily, I retreated. Every hair on the
back of my neck was at full attention, throbbing in time with the
small patch of pain on my scalp. Citrine gaze darting every which way
– even skyward – I searched to no avail as I backed out of the
temple district. Moments later, I turned and ran at full-speed,
juking down alleyways at random, turning right three times only to
catch the lip of a door awning and traverse the rooftops for a few
blocks, stopping within crowds of people to move slowly and attempt
to lose myself in their bustle. It took an hour – well into the
fall of full night – for me to finally lose the sensation that I
was being watched.
. . . . . Every
time a man's shadow fell over me, I sized it up, wary of any which
were larger than average. I took to wearing my hair up so tightly
none of it could escape to brush my neck. All four of my usual dosses
were abandoned and I began sleeping on rooftops despite the coming
winter chill. The bakery became a forbidden luxury, off-limits for as
long as I was being watched. And I knew
I was being watched.
. . . . . A flutter of red
out of the corner of my eye taunted me. A first, I would spin to look
for it, but it would always vanish. If I held my knowledge close, not
moving my head or my eyes, the ribbon would remain. Once at the edge
of the linen seller's stall again, gone only when I gave in and
turned my head to look for it. Once like a pennant from a doorway
leading to a guardsman's house, which I entirely ignored and walked
past. Once lying peaceably over the lip of the roof I chose for the
night – a rooftop covering a travelers' hostel.
. . . . . That
night, I noted it and let it be, going about setting up my bedroll.
He was watching; he had
to be watching, and with that in mind, I did what I would not if I
were alone. I let my hair down from its confinement, combing my
fingers through it until the waves settled and shone in the gibbous
moonlight. Slowly, paying no heed to the ribbon draped over the
foot-high boundary wall around the top of the roof, I picked up the
small pack in which I kept my meager belongings. Making a show of it,
I searched for the small jar of dried mint leaves I liked to chew on
before sleep. “Oops,” I murmured as the jar slipped from my
fingers and rolled – so conveniently! – to within a few inches of
where the ribbon lay. Paying the crimson taunt no heed at all, I
walked unhurriedly to my dropped possession and bent down to scoop it
up. Straightening, I sighed aloud as I let out a jaw-cracking yawn.
. . . . . A whisper of
breath, a well-stifled yawn but not quite well enough, off to my left
and down four feet. Without looking, without thinking too hard on it,
I winged the jar in my hand at the source of the sound. A large hand
covered in swarthy, sun-dark skin appeared over the top of the roof,
neatly catching the jar of mint leaves and setting them down on the
ledge. Next to the red ribbon.
. . . . . When I walked –
staid and steady – to pick up the jar, I dared a peek down. The
giant was gone. But the ribbon remained. I plucked it off the lip of
the roof with two fingers and used it to tie my hair up high, the
ends of the ribbon curling against my neck.
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