Page 106 of Untempered
She tugged on this knot, too. “Going to tell me I can’t do it?” she asked, monotone again.
“Far be it from me to speak facts. That rope won’t even reach the top.”
She didn’t respond, just paced a short distance away, and started to swing it as if itwasa grappling hook.
“Does she know you were set on by Southerners?” I asked Chay quietly as she let it fly, and it fell short, hitting the stone with a loud clatter and falling to the ground.
“Yes.”
She’d know, then, that they wouldn’t be inclined toward mercy. My heart sat heavily as she set her feet, eyed the top of the wall, and started spinning her makeshift hook again. “That maid’s the only one the Duke let her be close to,” I told him, hoping his frustration might mellow some if he could understand. “I bet she’s been a right pain in the backside, but…”
Chay sighed and climbed down to stand beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “We can’t let her go back out.”
“The risk is too high,” I agreed softly. The rope clattered again. She jogged over to it, yanking it fiercely. “You were smart to remind her of Isolde’s wishes.”
But he wasn’t mollified by my soft words. “She doesn’t need to be there when they find Isolde’s body.”
I was relieved to hear he was thinking along the same lines as me. Grim reality was better than dangerous optimism. “It might be hard to convince her to stay. I could ask her to help at the hospital. It’ll keep her busy.”
“And get her sick. No. We need to think up something closer to home to keep her busy.”
I dug out my hip flask, offering it to him. The light from the torch in his hand flickered over the metal surface, showing the rose my wife had paid dearly to have engraved on the surface. Chay shook his head, so I unscrewed it. The cider was body temperature and tasted like coppers, like it always did from this flask. I loved it all the same.
“Mayhap Sandra,” I suggested, keeping the words soft. “I could tell the lady she needs company. Do you think that would entice her?”
“I’ve no idea what entices that woman,” he said, in such a way that I looked at him hard. The planes of his face were harsh in the bright light, the growth on his jaw light and shadows under his eyes dark. “No,” he breathed. I followed his gaze as he said, louder, “Wild horses, woman, what are youdoing?”
She was off the ground already, feet scrabbling for footholds, hands locked around knife-hilts. The blades were buried deep in the cracks of the wall.
There was no way she’d make it to the top. “Get down!” I ordered, not realizing I spoke to her like one of my own until the words were out of my mouth. Chay was already at the wall, hovering beneath her, I a few steps behind. My heart was in my throat. I could see the pale flecks of stone where she’d cut herself a foothold at my eye height. “My lady, that isnot safe.”
She didn’t say anything. The rope dangled above her, hooked as it would’ve had it been a proper grappling hook, at least from the look of it, and my heart sat in my chest like a lump of ice as I watched her pull a knife from the stone.
One of her feet slipped, and she leaned in close to the wall, her breathing deep and quick, her eyes turned upward.
Neither Chay nor I said anything as she found purchase with her unsteady foot higher and drove the knife in again, using it like a climbing spike.
I closed my eyes.
Southern mages, dead handmaids, plague, and a guard who couldn’t or wouldn’t maintain the peace.
We needed to leave this city. Even the appearance of safety was gone, now.
The whisper of rubble falling made me look again. She was higher than she’d been a moment ago, but not even halfway to the bottom of the rope.
I tossed my shield away and braced myself to catch her. Beside me, Chay did the same.
From the corner of my eye, I saw movement along the wall, and hope surged through me. “There’s someone to open the gate!” I called, my heart in my throat. “My lady!”
“Who goes?” someone shouted.
“Raise the gate!” I called back, feeling sick, unable to take my eyes off her as she reversed her progress, finding the holes she’d used already, the same footholds.
The lone figure broke into a jog just as the little lady slipped.
Time stopped, just as it had when Beatie had tumbled off the edge of the drain and into the water below last winter. And just like then, I stayed back, trusting others to fulfill their role. I was in the wrong position, and I couldn’t remedy that. If I’d moved, I would’ve knocked into Chay, who was in the perfect position.
She caught herself, though, with a noise of pain through gritted teeth, then skidded down the wall. I remembered the local butcher’s boy holding my little girl up, covered in algae and ready to cry from the terror of it.
