Well, at least they don’t plan to starve me, she thought. She had a sudden flash of concern that the meal might have been drugged. But then she shrugged. Why would they bother? As far as Doutro was concerned, she was a homeless stray, possibly a petty criminal, and of little interest to him.
She rose and prowled restlessly around the room. Outside, she heard the creak of Erlic’s chair as he shifted position. She went to the window and tried to peer out, but her field of vision was limited. The window was on the side of the house and she could see other houses directly across what seemed to be a relatively wide lane. The house facing her was a storey lower and she estimated that it was eight metres away – too far to reach. She had already decided that her most logical escape route was out the window.
A thought struck her and she walked to the bed, pulling the straw mattress aside. As she had hoped, the bed was fashioned from a wooden frame, with a rope net to support the mattress. The net consisted of two long pieces of rough rope, strung lengthwise and crosswise. She took the knife and cut the lengthwise rope, unthreading it through the holes in the timber and pulling it loose. The result was a five-metre length of rope. She removed the crosswise rope next, and gained another four metres. She replaced the mattress, balancing it precariously on the edge of the frame. It sagged in the middle but in the dim light, if anyone came, she hoped it would pass muster.
She sat and waited until she estimated that an hour had passed. It was dark outside the window now, although there was a half moon that threw some light into the room. And she noticed now that there was an angled fanlight above the door, leaving a twenty-centimetre gap, presumably for ventilation. It admitted a dim light from the hallway.
After an hour, when nobody had returned to collect the tray, she guessed that she would be left alone for the night. She rose and tiptoed to the door, bending to listen through the latch hole. She could hear nothing for a few seconds. Then she heard the sound of Erlic’s chair creaking as he shifted position. She grinned unsympathetically. Obviously, he was destined to sleep in the chair all night.
Taking the small knife, she moved silently to the window and inserted the blade in the crack between the two halves, underneath the exterior latch bar. She felt a wave of frustration as she realised the small paring knife was too short to reach all the way through. The heavy window frames were thicker than the length of the blade.
She withdrew the knife and pursed her lips thoughtfully. Using the knife to open the window had been central to her plan of escape. She hadn’t considered that the blade might be too short for the task. Then an idea struck her. She padded quietly back to the bed and retrieved the dowel rod she had broken earlier. She went to work with the knife and whittled the last fifteen centimetres of the rod down to a narrow, flat shape. She tested it periodically until it was thin enough to fit through the narrow gap between the window frames. She rested it against the latch bar and began to move it upwards. But the latch hadn’t been raised in a long time and it was stiff. She felt the weakened rod bending ominously.
Her pulse raced and she forced herself to wait a few minutes to calm down. If she broke the rod in the window gap, she might not be able to remove the broken piece. The gap would be blocked and there would be no way she could force the latch up. Frustration built in her. The idea had seemed so simple. Slip the blade into the gap, unlock the windows. Now it might all come undone because the blade was a centimetre too short and the rod was too weak.
Suppressing a curse, she slid the knife into the gap, under the flattened rod, supporting it for most of its length. Then she lifted once more – gently at first, then with growing firmness. The rod bent at the point where it protruded past the knife blade and she stopped, heart in her mouth. Then she tried again, gradually increasing the pressure, and felt a small movement.
Again she lifted and again the latch bar moved by a half-centimetre. Then it sprang free and slipped up and out of the two brackets that held it in position, falling away into the laneway. She held her breath, and heard a faint clatter as it struck the cobblestones below. She waited to see if there was any outcry from the street. But apparently nobody had noticed. She let the long-held breath go in a shuddering sigh, then moved back to the table to collect the rest of her equipment.
She dropped the knife into a pocket, coiled the rope over her shoulder and took a last look around the room. There was nothing else she could use, she thought. She walked quickly to the window, swung both frames open and stepped her left leg over the frame, ready to climb out. She boosted herself off the floor with her other leg.
The door opened.
She paused, half in and half out of the window, as light from the corridor flooded into the room. Erlic stood, his hand on the latch, watching her in shock.
‘What are you doing? Get down!’ he ordered. Then he made his mistake. He should have relocked the door and raised the alarm. Instead, he moved into the room and towards her, to stop her.
She stepped lightly down to meet him. As he reached out to grab her arm, she moved forward, inside his grasping hand. She slipped her right leg behind his, pivoted on her right instep and hit him on the side of the jaw with the heel of her open hand, fingers spread to increase its rigidity.
The nerve endings in Erlic’s jaw sent a lightning message to his brain and he blacked out like a snuffed candle. As he reeled back from the blow, Lydia’s right leg trapped his and he went down with a heavy crash on the floor. She bent over him quickly. He was breathing but he was out cold. She moved to the door and pulled it shut, hearing the latch click into place. Then she returned to the still form on the floor.
She might need the rope, so she couldn’t spare any to tie him up. But she had to incapacitate him as she had no idea how long he’d remain unconscious. Probably no more than a minute or two. She glanced around the room, then grabbed the blanket from the bed, along with the rolled-up dress she’d used earlier as a pillow.
She wrapped the dress round and round his head in a tight bundle, covering him down to the neck and using the sleeves to tie it in place. If he cried out now, the sound would be well and truly muffled. Then she stripped off his belt, rolled him tightly in the blanket and fastened it in place with the belt, pulling it as tight as she could and making sure his arms were trapped firmly on either side of his body.
‘That should do it,’ she muttered. She was about to go out the window again when a further thought struck. She walked quickly to the door and jammed the untrimmed end of the dowel into the latch hole as before, trapping the latch in place. Then she snapped off the dowel close to the door. If anyone tried to come in now, they’d first have to force the broken piece of wood out of the hole.
Satisfied that she’d done all she could to delay discovery and pursuit, she moved to the window and peered out. The roof was a steep pitch, finished in flat slate tiles. She tested one with the palm of her hand. Fortunately, there’d been no rain recently and the tile was smooth, but not slippery.
She took off her boots – bare feet would give her a better grip on the slates – and shoved them through her belt at the back. Then, with one last glance at the unfortunate Erlic, she jackknifed out the window, facing the roof, and began to climb the steep pitch to the central ridge.
She pressed her bare hands and feet hard against the slates to create the greatest amount of friction and increase her grip. Using a well-established climbing technique, she moved one hand or one foot at a time, leaving the other three to provide maximum purchase. Moving like a giant spider, she swarmed up the roof until she was straddling the ridge. There, she heaved a sigh of relief and looked around her. The moon was halfway through its nightly journey and it cast a soft light over the sea of roofs around her. Doutro’s house was one of the tallest in the area and, as she had earlier noted, it was placed on a high point. The view was quite spectacular. Looking towards the harbour, she could see the tips of masts belonging to ships moored there.
But she wasn’t here to look at the harbour. She rose and, walking with her fe
et splayed on either side of the ridge pole, made her way to the rear of the house, a few metres from where she had been sitting.
As she had hoped, and as was normal in towns like this, the rear of the house was served by a narrow alley – much narrower than the side laneway. The alley gave access for service carts to haul away garbage and nightsoil. She looked across to the back of the house opposite. It stood several metres lower than Doutro’s mansion and was barely three metres away.
An easy jump – if she ignored the twenty-metre drop to the laneway below.
She sat down on the ridge pole again and peered over the side, grunting in satisfaction when she saw what she had been hoping for. Doutro’s house, like most multi-storey buildings, was equipped with a sturdy lifting beam and hook, so that large items of furniture could be hauled to the upper floors without the need to negotiate the narrow stairways inside. There was a similar beam on the house opposite her.
She uncoiled the rope around her shoulders and fashioned a large loop in one end. She dropped this over the hook, then fastened the other end around her waist. Then she stood and backed away from the edge of the roof, holding the loose rope out to one side. For a moment, she had a terrible picture of herself running towards the roof’s edge and tangling her feet in the rope, crashing over and dropping into the gap between the two houses. She pushed it firmly aside.
She moved back eight long paces. Then she paused, staring at the line of the ridge leading towards that empty gap. Seeing the roof opposite. If she missed, the rope might break her fall and save her. Or it might send her swinging like a pendulum, to smash into the walls of Doutro’s house. She pushed that thought aside too.
Then, before she could think any further, she launched herself.
She ran lightly, setting her feet on the ridge itself. As she reached the end, she hurled herself forward, releasing the rope as she went, so that it fell away in a loose curve below her.
She had her eyes fixed on the opposite roof, but she sensed the dark drop beneath her, seeming to reach up to drag her down.
Then she was across, clearing the gap by a metre and a half. The roof was lower than Doutro’s and the pitch wasn’t as steep. She landed on her feet on the left side of the ridge, her knees buckling with the force of the fall. They slammed into the hard slate of the roof and she grunted in pain. Then, as she lost her balance and began to fall forward, she hurled herself upwards, using all her strength to hurl her upper body towards the ridge. As her feet went out from under her, she scrabbled for a hold on the ridge, slipping, losing her grip, then finally holding.
She heaved herself up and straddled the ridge, giving herself a few moments for her breathing to ease and her heart to stop racing. Then she scrambled to the edge of the roof and flicked the slack rope to release it from the loading hook. It took her three attempts, sending a half loop flicking across the gap, until the line jerked free of the hook and dropped away into the darkness below her.
She peered over the edge. She could see an open window four metres below her and a little to her right. That would do. She reeled in the rope, made the end fast around the cargo hook on this side, then lowered herself off the roof, her feet scrabbling for a grip on the brickwork as she descended slowly. The rope creaked ominously and she wondered how old it was. But it was too late now to worry about that. She let herself down until she was level with the open window. There was no light coming from it and she hoped that meant the room behind it was empty. She walked her way across the wall to the window, set herself, then pushed off and swung herself out, then in through the opening, releasing the rope as she went feet first into the room. She hit the floor and fell in a tangle of arms and legs, coming to her feet quickly and glancing round to get her bearings.
She was in a bedroom. A woman’s bedroom, judging by the frills and flounces and lace over the bed. And sure enough, there was an elderly woman asleep in the bed.
More correctly, she had been asleep. She sat up in confusion now at the sudden racket of a body hitting the floor, her lacy ruffled mobcap falling over her eyes, as she peered round the darkened room. Her eyes lit on Lydia and she gasped and put her hand to her mouth in fright.
‘Who are you?’ she quavered.
Lydia help up a hand in a calming gesture. ‘I’m Lydia. How do you do?’ she said, smiling. She assumed no real burglar would ever introduce herself. ‘I’m looking for Gerald. Is he here?’
It was the first thing that came to her mind. She thought it sounded calming and soothing – certainly much better than ‘I’m here to rob you blind’ or ‘I’m here to kill you in your bed’. She simply wanted to engage with the woman, to start a conversation – anything to stop her screaming. Amazingly, the woman pointed a trembling hand at the door.
‘He’s across the corridor,’ she said. The puzzled note in her voice was all too obvious. Lydia’s eyes widened in surprise and for a moment she was frozen. Then she recovered.
‘Right! Sorry to bother you. Got the wrong room. Stupid of me. I’ll be going along now.’
She stepped quickly to the door and let herself out. Behind her, she heard a quavering voice.
‘Are you a friend of Gerald’s? Perhaps you should knock.’
She shook her head incredulously. ‘Who’d believe it?’ she asked herself. She glanced along the corridor until she saw a set of stairs leading down. As she descended them, moving like a wraith, she heard the elderly woman calling faintly.
‘Gerald? There’s someone to see you.’
She encountered nobody else as she made her way through the silent, darkened house. She found the rear door, unbarred it and stepped out into the narrow alley she had just crossed, twenty metres above her present position.
‘Now to get the boys out of prison,’ she said softly.
The Herons heard footsteps in the corridor, then the grille door was abruptly thrown open and a limp figure was shoved roughly into the room. They were startled by this sudden turn of events, and the door was slammed and locked again before they could react.
Thorn was first to move. He crossed the cellar in three long steps and knelt beside the unconscious figure who lay face down on the hard stone. He turned him over, wincing at the bruises and cuts on Hal’s face as he saw them. He cradled the boy gently on his knees as he knelt beside him.
As the others recognised their skirl, there was a chorus of angry and alarmed exclamations. Only Pedr remained where he had been sitting against the wall. He’d been in the cellar for several weeks and he was used to seeing his fellow prisoners returning this way after a session with Doutro.
‘Hal? Are you all right?’ Edvin asked. He knelt beside Thorn, reaching out to turn Hal’s face towards the dim light from the torch in the corridor. The rest of the crew clustered around, uttering cries of anger as they saw the extent of Hal’s injuries. Edvin glanced up at Stig, whose face was twisted in anger as he saw the way his friend had been treated.
‘Fetch me the water jug, Stig,’ he said. ‘And someone find me a clean cloth.’
They had been supplied with a large jug of drinking water. It was resting on a shelf in the stone wall, alongside a battered tin mug. Not knowing how often it would be refilled, they had been rationing the water. It wasn’t a lot to share between nine of them – ten counting Pedr. Stig retrieved it now and handed it to Edvin.
The second request was easier said than done. There simply was no clean cloth anywhere in the cellar. The Herons looked round helplessly, as if hoping that one would suddenly materialise. Then Ingvar solved the problem, removing his outer jacket and tearing the sleeve out of his linen shirt. He handed it to Edvin.
‘Thanks,’ Edvin said, without looking up. He soaked the cloth and began to bathe the rapidly congealing blood from Hal’s face, squeezing the cold water out over the swellings and bruises on his cheeks and eyebrows.
He worked gently on a cut on Hal’s lip. It was obviously painful, as the young skirl’s eyes flickered open and he frowned up at Edvin’s concerned face.
‘Ow. Take it easy, will you?’ The words were thick and distorted by the swollen lip but there was a concerted sigh of relief as they saw that he was conscious, and seemed to be in control of his faculties.
‘What happened?’ Ulf asked. His voice showed how worried he was and Hal tried to grin reassuringly at him, but the movement hurt his lip and he flinched, reaching up to touch it. That made him flinch again.
‘What do you think happened?’ Wulf asked angrily. ‘He was beaten up. That’s what happened. Even a fool can see that.’
‘Which is why you can,’ Ulf replied, with some spirit. ‘What I mean was, who did this, and why?’
‘Then why didn’t you say that?’ Wulf shot back. ‘What you said was –’
‘Shut up,’ Ingvar said. There was a distinctly threatening tone in his voice and the twins turned quickly to look at him. He was standing right behind them. His hands were loosely curled into claws in front of him and the brothers both had the same vision – of Ingvar grabbing them by their collars and banging their heads together.
They shut up.
Hal let out a weak cackle of laughter, wincing once more as his split lip warned him against excess movement.
‘Good to see things haven’t changed,’ he said.
‘Good to see you can laugh about it,’ Stig said. ‘When we get out of here, I’m going to beat the ballast stones out of Doutro.’
‘You’ll be queuing behind me to do it,’ Ingvar said warningly.
Stig glanced quickly at the big boy. He had never seen such a look of fury on Ingvar’s normally placid face. Stig made a placatory gesture.
‘Anything you say, Ingvar. Happy to let you have first dibs,’ he said.
Ingvar’s only reply was a rumbling growl, a primitive sound that came from deep in his massive chest. Hearing it, the twins were glad they’d stopped arguing as quickly as they had.
Edvin finished cleaning the last of the blood from Hal’s face, soaked the cloth in water again and wadded it up, placing it in Hal’s left hand.
The Hunters Page 13
