Page 19 of Swordheart
“Is there anything else you require from this house, lady?” asked Sarkis politely.
Halla had an intense desire to run back to her room and hide under the covers. The violence of the last five minutes had been more than she had experienced in a decade.
But then:
“You’ll be hanged!” hissed Malva. “For murder! For abduction! And don’t think you’re coming back here, Halla. You’re dead to this family.Dead!”
Oh gods, please let that be true.
She raised her chin. “Just to leave it.”
Sarkis stepped over the prone Roderick and pushed the door open. The square of moonlight on the other side looked cold and clear and extraordinarily inviting.
“Then let us go.”
CHAPTER 6
The air outside was chilly. The moon blazed in the sky overhead. Sarkis took her hand again as they left the house. It felt less like affection and more like a rider tugging on a horse’s reins, but at the moment, Halla was willing to be led. Her ear still felt hot and swollen from Malva’s slap.
“My aunt’ll rouse the constables,” whispered Halla. “We need to get out of the town.”
He nodded. The cobbled streets were empty as they hurried away from Silas’s house, but Halla knew it wouldn’t last for long.
He pulled her into a narrow alley. The walls rose above them, shutters locked against the night. This part of town was mostly tall, narrow buildings, sharing walls with one another. The tightly canted rooftops fit together like puzzle boxes, following old lines of ownership. The alleys between them twisted and turned like snakes.
“Where can we steal a horse?”
She gaped at him. “What?”
“A horse,” said Sarkis patiently. “They still make horses, don’t they? I haven’t been in the sword that long?”
“Yes, of course, but… We’re going to steal one?”
“I don’t propose to buy one in the middle of the night, my lady.”
“I’ve never stolen a horse before.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“You were very concerned with the honor of my kinswomen,” said Halla, “but you’re not concerned with being a horse thief?”
He snorted. “Raiding cattle and kine is a fine and honorable tradition. If they cannot hold their beasts, they deserve to lose them.”
Halla might have had something to say to that, but a shout rang out from farther down the street.
“Wake the constables!Murder!”
“Your aunt has quite a set of lungs,” Sarkis observed.
“She always has,” said Halla wearily. “She’d yell for her tray in bed in the morning when she visited, and you could hear her clear out back with the chickens.”
He stepped to the mouth of the alley and looked both ways, then stepped back into shadow. “Too exposed. Which way do you suggest?”
“We need to get to the churchyard,” said Halla. “It’s near the edge of town. If we can get into the burial yard, we can cut through. There’s a lich-gate at the far end that leads out of the walls and into the fields.”
“Will it be open?”
Halla sighed. “Yes. They keep it open for dead bodies. My great-uncle is lying under it.”
