by Duncan Lay
The trumpet call to prayer made her start and she watched with a mixture of fear and determination as the two guards immediately turned away from her, kneeling down and placing their foreheads on the ground, hands out flat before them, chanting the prayers. All around came the same noise and Bridgit signaled to the others, not making a noise. Ely slipped a mattress over the edge of the window so that their rope would not rub against the wood, then stepped back to take her place pulling.
Bridgit swung her legs out into space and slithered down the mattress, looking up to see the strain on Nola’s face as the weight came across her shoulders. They had practiced this at the rear of the house the night before and it had gone well. But then there was only a tiny risk of discovery.
Bridgit tugged on the rope, then clutched tight as it began to descend, the long chain of teenagers and women walking towards the window, lowering her as they did so. She slithered down silently, hanging on for dear life and offering up a silent prayer to Aroaril that everyone else would continue with their own loud prayers. She was also counting in her head, so she had an idea when the prayers would finish and the guards resume their duty.
She glanced down and saw the ground rushing up at her and had to stifle a cry of concern. But her pace slowed right down and she touched down lightly. The use of colored robes had helped here, for they had worked out when a red robe was getting towards Nula’s shoulder that Bridgit would be almost on the ground. She reached down with her left foot and stepped onto the cobbles, then slipped her right from the loop and tugged the rope twice.
Almost before she had finished the second tug, the rope vanished upwards, being whisked away at a fearsome pace. Without watching, Bridgit turned and strode swiftly down the street. The prayers were still going on and she was still counting, having reached fifty already. She had to balance silence with speed, and drove her legs hard, feeling her calves burn as the count went on and she strove to reach a corner.
She reached it as she hit a count of ninety, and turned to her right. She knew that way lay an alleyway they had used to return from the market and that it had usually been quiet at such times – but who knew what it would be like now?
She let out a gasp of relief when it proved empty and leaned against the wall, her heart pounding, while the prayers finished. She could hear the city slowly resuming its business around her but she stayed in the alleyway for a further count of two hundred, letting her heart calm down, before emerging and walking back slowly the way she had come.
The guards did not give her a second look as she strolled past, forcing herself to go slowly and not look up at the house, although she knew her friends would be watching for her.
After prayers, the city life was winding down, with people hurrying home and shops closing up for the night. The scarf and hood she was wearing not only marked her as someone who should be given room to walk – they also allowed her to look around without seeming to. This part of the city was worryingly busy now, although she hoped it would be much quieter when they attempted a similar trip in the dead of the night.
Still, seeing plenty of other women and children out on the street was reassuring. Obviously none had scores of children around them but they made it feel safer.
But this road came to an end and she turned left, heading towards the area where the field slaves were kept. Almost immediately the tone of the street began to change. There were fewer women and more men and unconsciously she lengthened her stride, aware that she was getting more people looking at her. Beneath the long robe she wore she held a sharpened piece of wood flat alongside her forearm. It was a chair leg the children had spent the best part of the day rubbing along stones to create a sharpened end. It was enough to make her wince if she jabbed her finger onto it but it was hardly a fearsome weapon.
On and on she walked, sometimes taking the wrong turn and having to make her way back, but it all looked possible. Late at night, when nobody was around, she was confident she could get the children through these streets safely. There were numerous little alleys where they could hide in darkness while others went past, and nobody had taken much notice of her.
It seemed as though Adana had been built piece by piece, bits added on all the time, rather than designed. Streets didn’t seem to meet up and rarely traveled in a straight line. She turned and headed down towards the docks, where the rest of her people were being held. At first the streets were quiet and peaceful but the closer she came to the water, the rougher things seemed. There were certainly no more women of quality around. It felt like the village drinking hall at the end of a long day, when decent people were thinking of calling for Fallon to come and keep the peace.
Men were staggering out of whatever passed for drinking halls in Adana and leering at her. She couldn’t understand what they were saying – and she was glad of that. Abandoning ideas of finding the last few places that held her people, she cut down an alley, hoping to get out of this area and find her way back to the house. Getting back in was going to be even harder than getting out, although requiring a little less timing. She decided she had had enough excitement for one night.
The alleyway was dim but a sudden spill of light showed what looked like a sailor, who staggered out of a doorway and then began to piss against the opposite wall. Bridgit let her chairleg-dagger slip down into her hand and stepped around him, walking even faster.
He must have felt her passing rather than seen it, but she heard the trickle dry up and then he called out something to her. Having no idea what he might be asking she decided it would be far safer to keep walking, and actually broke into something closer to a trot, hoping he would go back to whatever he was drinking.
But she heard footsteps behind her, getting louder, as well as another challenge, this one louder and angrier. The end of the alleyway looked too far away and she did not want to be attacked from behind, so she stopped and spun around. Her heart was thumping and her breath was rasping painfully in her throat, but the makeshift dagger was steady in her hand, hidden behind her back. She was under no illusions as to what was at stake. If she were discovered to be Gaelish, then rape would be the least of her problems.
The sailor slowed as he approached, a drunken grin on his face, and he kept talking. She could not understand a word but from his tone guessed he was bragging about what a great catch he was and why she should immediately go with him for a shag somewhere.
But when she said nothing his voice changed, becoming a little harder. He reached out a hand to grab her hood but she did not wait to find out what he would do next. She took a half-step closer, her left hand reaching out to grab his shoulder, her right whipping up with the full force of not just her arm and shoulder but all her fear and disgust. The sharpened chair dagger rammed up underneath the man’s chin, ripping through the soft skin, into his mouth and up further, before striking and splintering on something hard inside his head. She tried to rip it back out but it was stuck and he was staggering back, trying to speak, but only a spray of hot blood was coming out.
She hesitated for a moment, seeing him futilely trying to pull the weapon out of his face, while he made strange grunting noises, his mouth pinned shut, his tongue pierced by her blow. Then he collapsed and she turned and ran for it.
She felt the hood flip back off her face and the scarf fall down as she raced away but she was more concerned about creating some distance before the man’s friends found him. As she ran she wiped her bloody hand on the inside of her dark robe – not so much to hide what she had done but more because the hot, sticky blood made her skin crawl.
Bridgit emerged from the alleyway and slowed down instantly, flipping up her hood and adjusting her scarf. She did not recognize this part of town and she did not stop to get her bearings, instead walking swiftly and changing direction rapidly, to throw off any pursuit. Her heart had almost returned to normal when she finally walked back into the street that held the house that had become their prison. She could not have retraced her route if her life depended o
n it but she still counted it as a success. Now she just had to get back in safely.
There were two new guards in the doorway, sitting down and leaning back, one of them smoking a pipe, the other carving something with wood. She was pleased to see them so bored. No doubt guarding a house full of women and children was not a popular task for Adana’s soldiers. That was how she wanted it. Carefully, because she did not want to attract their attention, she flicked a pebble up at the window she had escaped from only a couple of turns of the hourglass earlier. It vanished into the open window and she immediately hoped she had not hit one of the waiting children. A few moments later a pale hand waved out of the window and she continued up the street, as slow as she could go, keeping half an eye on what was happening at the door.
Almost immediately, there was a knock on the door from the inside and the two guards sprang up, pocketing the dice and unlocking the door to see what was happening. Instantly Bridgit changed direction and cut across the street, standing beneath the window as voices began to argue from behind the door.
Their makeshift rope dropped down at her feet and she slipped her foot into the loop, took a careful hold of it and tugged twice. She zoomed up the side of the building; and as she came level with the window, she looked into Nola’s sweating face and grabbed the edge of the sill, to help herself tumble over the edge and onto the mattress.
“Stop pulling!” she hissed, as the older children continued to haul away, swinging her leg around.
From below, the sound of Riona and Ely talking to the guards was coming to a close.
“We did it!” Bridgit grinned up at Nola.
Her friend let the rope drop and reached down to pull her up, only to recoil when she saw the blood on her right hand.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“I’ll tell you later. Not in front of the children. But know that we can do this,” Bridgit said. “Now I need to wash. In fact it feels like I need to have a bath for a moon.”
CHAPTER 10
Fallon did not want to leave the bodies in the alleyway, where Aidan could pretend none of this had happened. The easiest way to move them was in a cart, and he and Brendan found one swiftly. Its owner was less than happy at giving it up but found the sight of Brendan’s hammer even more persuasive than Fallon’s arguments.
The cart was small enough to get down the alleyway and they hurled the dead snatchers on to it before covering them with a canvas sheet. They looked strangely small and not at all threatening now. The six men who had followed them from the castle seemed to have disappeared, which made Fallon’s neck itch. It reminded him of the time when he had joined a hunt with the Duke of Leinster. Beaters had been used to drive the game towards the hunters, where they could be killed. But now the hunters were dead, what would the beaters do? Go home or join the hunt?
“I reckon their hideout is around this corner,” Gallagher said, leading the way to a boarded-up house in a quiet street. Fallon trusted the fisherman’s memory, for he and Devlin had scoured the city for the snatchers on Cavan’s orders. Judging by the nailed boards across the broken front door, they had been in there once already.
“When we go in, stay together. Nobody goes off by themselves for a look,” he ordered, then loaded his crossbow. “If there’s any more in there, get them down and Brendan’ll do the rest.”
“I hope there is,” Brendan said wolfishly.
Fallon gave him a quick look but the big smith seemed serious. Fallon sighed again. How would everything go back to normal when Brendan wanted to smash in heads and Devlin would not make a joke? He shook that thought away. “Come on,” he said, then saw they were attracting quite a crowd, although the sight of Brendan’s bloody hammer kept the people at a safe distance.
“Stay back! We don’t know what is in there!” he shouted.
It did little to deter them and he nodded to Brendan. Better to get in fast. Waiting just gave more people the chance to see what was going on.
Brendan’s hammer shattered the door and Fallon led the way in, crossbow searching for anyone hiding in the shadows.
The house was dark and silent and Fallon quietly ordered Devlin and Gallagher to start knocking away the covers from the windows. Daylight poured in through grubby panes, revealing a large room with a small fireplace and a twisting set of stairs heading up into more darkness. There was nobody in sight and no furniture, nothing to indicate anyone had ever been here.
“Maybe it’s still empty,” Gallagher said.
“We’ll look anyway,” Fallon said. “Do you remember what is upstairs?”
“Do you know how many houses we broke into?” Gallagher said with a shrug. “More rooms, I suppose.”
“Spread out,” Fallon ordered. “And for Aroaril’s sake watch the stairs!”
He eased closer to the fireplace, risked a look in there, but it appeared empty. Then he held up his hand and waved to Gallagher.
“What is it?” his friend asked, ghosting across the wooden floor.
Fallon stepped around the fireplace. He could hear faint voices, people crying, and he was reminded of the time when they had almost caught Swane and his Fearpriest, when the sound of crying children had lured him deep into the Prince’s foul pit.
“Can’t you hear that?” he whispered.
The others all froze also, everyone straining to pick up what grated on Fallon’s ears.
“It’s coming from around here.” Fallon slapped his palm on the thick brick chimney.
“Is it next door?” Gallagher asked. “I can hear something but it’s faint.”
“Brendan, hit that wall,” Fallon ordered.
The big smith shrugged, then swung his hammer at the rough plaster, except when it struck, it sounded like wood. Fallon waved the smith back and shoved on it. A chunk of a door fell away, revealing stairs leading downwards.
“That was not here when we came in last time,” Gallagher said. “We never went down in any of those houses. None of them had a cellar.”
“None that we could find, anyway,” Devlin said.
The sounds of calling and crying people was getting louder now.
“Come on up! You are free!” Fallon bellowed down the stairs.
He waved and everyone moved back to the other side of the room, pointing their crossbows at the dark entrance to the cellar.
“What if it’s more of them down there?” Devlin whispered.
Fallon did not think it sounded like child snatchers and was trying to work up the courage to go in there when the sound of feet on steps made him drop to one knee, bow aimed at the door.
“Don’t loose! We have children!” a hoarse voice said, as a pair of dirty hands appeared from the doorway, followed by a thin man dressed in rags, blinking at even the dim light fighting its way in through the windows.
“Come on out,” Fallon instructed.
The man shuffled into the room, his hands on his head.
“We have to hurry, the snatchers could be back at any moment,” the man said urgently. “We need to get out of here before they do.”
“How many are there?” Fallon asked.
“Three of them. They never say a word but they will kill a man as quickly as look at him,” the man said, his eyes streaming tears. Fallon did not know if that was because of the light or because of what he had gone through. “We have to get out of here!”
“We killed all three. They are dead. We smashed their skulls in,” Fallon said.
The man fell to his knees. “Praise Aroaril!” he cried. “We prayed for this moment but I thought Aroaril had turned His face from us.”
“How many are you?” Fallon asked, lowering his crossbow.
“Many,” the man said. “Come out now, it is safe!” he called, and other faces appeared at the cellar doorway. Small faces of women and children.
“Who are you?” Fallon challenged.
“I am Conor. My daughter was taken by the snatchers and we came to see Prince Cavan, who promised to get her back. But that
night the snatchers came for us. They forced us to follow them or they would kill our children. This is the second house we have been in. They moved us at night and kept us in that cellar all the time, giving us bread and water once a day. Is it really true they are dead or am I dreaming?”
“Come with me and you can see their bodies,” Fallon invited.
Conor wiped his eyes, tears pouring down his face. “Thank you! I shall never forget this,” he vowed.
Behind him, other men, women and children were coming out of the cellar and filling the room. Fallon quickly counted nearly two dozen.
“Are you all prisoners of the snatchers?” he asked.
“We all lost children to them and were taken by them later,” a woman replied, rubbing her streaming eyes with a dirty sleeve.
Fallon signaled Gallagher over. “We’ll take them back to the castle,” he said. “Let’s see what the King says about this. He wanted to test us? Let’s test him. But we’ll have to put some of them in the cart. Make sure the bodies of the snatchers are pushed right up to one end.”
Gallagher nodded and hurried out.
“We’re going to get you some food, some clothes and the chance to clean up. And then you will probably need to tell your story to the King this time,” Fallon said loudly. “But you are safe now. Nothing more will happen to you. The snatchers are dead.”
“Have you found our missing children?” Conor asked eagerly.
Fallon turned back to the man. “I thought they were with you. I thought the snatchers had you all,” he said.
“Not our children who went missing first of all. They were not with us,” Conor said. “My daughter Becca. Have you seen her?”
Fallon remembered the sound of weeping children in Swane’s lair and shuddered. He had to somehow look for them. “No. But we will find her, I promise you,” he vowed.
