Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [58]
I went after him, though I would have preferred not to do so. The pursuit was pointless now, and potentially dangerous. Our quarry could easily elude us; the fact that he had not already done so in the Schmeidgasse made me highly suspicious of his present route. But there is no arguing with Tony when he gets in one of his rages; I couldn’t even get close enough to talk to him, much less reason with him. So I followed. I had left him in the lurch once before, and I didn’t enjoy the memory of that moment of cowardice.
It’s a wonder we both didn’t break our necks. I kept stumbling; once I caught my foot in a concavity and ricocheted off the railing with a force that made that insufficient barricade quiver. Tony was some distance ahead, running like an Olympic champ. He kept vanishing and reappearing as the stretches of darkness between the streetlights swallowed and then disgorged his fleeting form. The effect was quite unnerving.
The worst places were the towers that break the wall at intervals. The walkway goes through them, and the enclosed chambers are extremely dark. Preoccupied as I was by more vital matters, I couldn’t help noticing the stench as we passed through these tower rooms, and I wondered what primitive instinct moves some members of the so-called human race to relieve themselves in every secluded corner, as dogs do.
All at once I heard a rackety din ahead. We had been running noiselessly till then; I recognized the new sound and a chill stiffened my knees. I ran faster, but it was useless; I couldn’t catch up with Tony. He had already reached the wooden flooring.
That was the cause of the rumbling noise – heavy feet, no longer on stone, but on thin wooden planks. One stretch of the walkway had this surface underfoot; I suppose it replaced a broken section of stone. I glanced over the railing to my right and saw that my memory of the topography was accurate. The alley was gone; steep tiled roofs crowded up to the very rail. And that meant we were approaching a critical spot.
The walls of Rothenburg have many towers, but only six or seven main gateways. We had ascended at one of these gateways and were now approaching the next, at a rate that spelled trouble. The inner chambers of the towers are brightly lighted compared with the complicated inner structure of the bastions. Still running, I tried to remember how the next one was designed. It was the Spitalstor, if my memory served me, and it was a wonderful place for an ambush.
In a desperate burst of speed I closed up on Tony, who was getting winded. I was close enough to see what happened, but not close enough to prevent it.
The rock missed his head. It must have meant to miss it, because it was as big as a skull and it came whizzing out of the pitch-black entrance to the Spitalstor when Tony was less than six feet away. It landed on his bad shoulder, and it knocked him flat.
I had no intention of vaulting over Tony’s prostrate body to continue the chase. No, indeed. But I wouldn’t have been able to in any case. Tony fell on me. It was becoming a habit.
Tony was out cold, but he was breathing okay. I untangled myself and lifted his head onto my lap. He sat up with a start.
‘Damn it,’ he shouted, ‘why aren’t you chasing that guy?’
There was a brief silence, fraught with emotion.
‘I ought to let your head bounce off the floor,’ I said, finally.
‘Damn, damn damn. To fall for a hoary old trick like that . . . Damn.’
‘If you’re restraining your language on my account, don’t,’ I said, helping him up. ‘Can you make it back to the Schloss? No point hanging around here.’
‘Oh, sure. The principal damage is to my inflated ego.