Page 20 of Swordheart
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. It seemed like an age of the earth had passed since Silas had coughed out his last on the pillow. “I suppose I will not be attending his funeral, so I might as well pay my respects now.”
“Will someone be keeping the vigil for him?”
“They damn well better be! I paid the lay brothers to see that someone did!”
Sarkis’s lips twitched. “Well, we will deal with that as we must. Lead the way.”
Halla plunged into the alley, following a turn to the left. A stray cat looked up at her, annoyed, and scurried into the dark. She crossed an open street and darted down the side of the publichouse. Light gleamed through the closed shutters, and the sounds of revelry inside drowned out their footsteps.
She started to leave the far side of the alley, but Sarkis caught her shoulder and pulled her back into the shadows. Two men wearing the round helms of constables jogged past. Halla clamped her teeth shut on a gasp.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear them over the noise.”
“How many constables does your town field?”
“Eight. Two per hundred, you know, to keep the peace.”
“Is that how you do it here?”
“Certainly. How do you do it where you are?”
“Each lord has a holding. He keeps the peace.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“They string him up and get a new lord.”
“But what if—”
“Two constables there means six elsewhere, then,” he interrupted. “Hmm. Perhaps we’d best wait on the horse and focus on getting out from under them.”
Halla looked out into the street again. It looked clear, but she didn’t breathe easy until they had crossed the jagged band of moonlight into the shadows on the opposite side.
Another pair of constables passed them on the next road. “Still going toward the house,” whispered Halla.
“They’ve barely had time to get there,” he said in an undertone. “And somehow I doubt your aunt will give a clear and concise report about what transpired.”
Halla found that she had a strong urge to snicker and muffled it. She was afraid that if she started laughing she wouldn’t be able to stop.
They reached another alleyway. “This way,” whispered Halla. “We have to cross the corner of the market.”
Sarkis did not ask if there was another way. He simply nodded. “Very well. I see a wall. Toward there?”
“That’s the churchyard. Yes.”
He took her hand again, looked around, and then dashed across the open space.
In the shadow of the market stall, they paused. Shouts were beginning to come from the direction of Silas’s house. Halla could hear shutters banging. “Is it fire?” someone yelled.
“Fire?!” cried someone else in response.
“I don’t see smoke!”
“What’s on fire?”
They darted to the next shadow, beside the well. Sarkis dropped down and set his back against the stones. Halla crouched beside him, trying to catch her breath.
