Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [7]
‘Where are you going?’ she asked casually as she caught up, managing to prise Nessus off the man’s arm and persuade him to grab on to her own.
Nessus gave an irritated little squeal of protest but stayed with her all the same. The man turned and did a double take, evidently surprised at her presence.
‘This way looks quite nice,’ he said, gesturing vaguely in front of him. ‘Unless that’s a bad idea. . . ?’
Calamee looked up ahead: he was heading for the south side of the square, so unless he thought that buying an expensive new frock from one of Mother’s favourite outfitters might throw off his pursuers, she reckoned he needed a bit of help.
‘That way might be better,’ she suggested, pointing off to the left.
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said the stranger. ‘As you might have gathered, I’m rather new around here.’
He glanced back over his shoulder, looking for the Palace Guard. Calamee scanned the crowd: in the distance, she could see the spikes of the Guard’s staves, waving through the crowds like stalks of burnt corn. She could see people turning, pointing towards them. Although the Palace Guard were not greatly loved, they were certainly respected, and Calamee knew that most of the people would be more than happy to help catch an offworlder – particularly an offworlder that was running away from the Crystal Palace. For a moment, she wondered what exactly he’d done, and whether she should be quite so keen on following him. Nessus squeaked and clambered nimbly up on to her shoulder. He raised himself up on his long hind legs and, to Calamee’s amusement, appeared to be scanning the crowd as well. What was wrong with him today? He could be amusing, he could be irritating; today, the only word to describe his behaviour was determined. He leapt gracefully on to the offworlder’s back and tangled his fingers in the man’s hair.
‘D’you think you could keep your monkey under control?’ he said, trying to prise Nessus’s hands away from his eyes.
‘He’s a mokey,’ Calamee corrected him, pushing the man ahead of her. ‘And he seems to have taken quite a shine to you. Take it as a compliment and keep 12
moving if you don’t want them to catch up with you.’
The man grumbled and the crowds parted before them as they headed for the corner of the square. The streets branching out from the south-east corner were smaller, more labyrinthine, and Calamee reckoned that they had a better chance of hiding from the Guard there. Of course it would be just her luck to run into Mother and Father: she’d left them browsing furniture an hour ago, and by now they might even have noticed that she wasn’t with them any more. Just in front of the Palace, workmen were occupied with fencing off an area for some sort of tournament, part of the Imperator’s birthday bash, and she saw half a dozen nervous horses being led through the crowds. People were stepping aside nervously clearly scared of being kicked by the animals.
It gave Calamee a narrow avenue to slip through, dragging the stranger in her wake. A group of nuns in full habit stopped to stare judgementally at them, and Calamee smiled and crossed herself without thinking.
The throng around them began to thin out as they reached the edge of the square and she breathed a sigh of relief that at least no one had stopped them to ask the stranger where he was from. Yet.
‘This way,’ she hissed, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him down a narrow, cool street, buildings high on either side of them. The smell of spices and cooking meat filled the air and the stranger paused and irritably fanned away a haze of midges from his face, grimacing. He caught Calamee’s