The Alabaster Staff - Edward Bolme [35]
Naturally, those who were about to be evicted from the city tried to use the confusion to work their way back through the cordon and hide away. Though the soldiers were too alert to let that happen, the activity kept them distracted. In the general chaos that followed her accident dent, Kehrsyn concealed herself behind a loud tirade against "careless city constables," an accusation the volume, content, and speaker of which the soldiers were only too happy to ignore.
Seeing that her words fell on deaf ears, she turned on her heel and stomped away. Thus she made her way deeper into the city, unchallenged by those assigned to turn her out.
Once safely out of sight, she counted her coins. She'd lost a silver and three coppers. It would have been more, but her swift and delicate fingers had snitched several pieces back from the open purse of a wealthy resident who'd been helping himself to her spilled coins. As punishment, she'd also slipped one of his gold coins to a particularly needy-looking refugee.
She started to make her way back to Wing's Reach. There were advantages to making her move soon, she reflected. For one, the city guard would still be tied up primarily with ejecting the refugees from the city and therefore be less available to pursue a thief, were they to spot her. The snow was, of course, a second factor, and the chance that Wing's Reach might lock up for the night was a third.
But most of all, and reason enough unto itself, it got the tasteless act done with. She wasn't sure whether she'd deal with post-theft guilt better than she dealt with pre-theft trepidation, but she'd had enough dread for one day and was willing to try guilt, if only for variety.
She approached Wing's Reach from the rear, diverting through the alley to drag a bale of hay from the stables across the street to rest against one wall, just beneath a pair of windows, one window on the second floor and one on the third. She pulled her dagger from its hiding place beneath the bag and tied its scabbard to the back of her left forearm with the scraps left over from her cut bootlaces. That done, she pulled a ball of twine from her bag, then concealed her bag against the wall under the hay.
With great reluctance, she untied her rapier and scabbard. She placed them in a large urn half full of rain. The thin ice covering cracked as she shoved the wooden scabbard through. She hated to treat her scabbard like that, but it would either soak in the ice for only a very short time or else she wouldn't have need of it again.
She moved around to the front doors, which were as old-fashioned as the building was aged. Inertia alone held them closed, and the only way to latch them was with a large, heavy timber. She paused, breathing deeply and rapidly until she was on the verge of hyperventilating. Aside from being a part of her disguise, the slight fuzz it gave her brain helped quash her fears and reluctance.
She burst in the front door without knocking. As expected, she entered into a large foyer with a nicely tiled floor and smooth, white walls covered with traditional, stylized Untheric murals. To Kehrsyn's left, a single lamp hung from a chain dangling from the rafter. Two guards sat at a small table beneath it, wrapped in their cloaks and playing at a game of sava. Kehrsyn's sudden and loud appearance startled them. One tipped over the table-sava pieces, coins, wine, and all-as he burst to his feet and jumped back. The other displayed more presence of mind but less grace as he seized his khopesh, tripped over his cloak, and fell to his knees.
"What do you think you're doing?" bellowed the guard on the floor, while the other tried to cover for his surprise by grabbing his weapon as well.
Kehrsyn labored with her lungs, noticing that, even inside the foyer, she could see the vapors of her breath in the air.
"Copper…" she panted, "copper for a message, sir?"
"Message for whom?" the guard asked, getting back to his feet
"Anyone, sir," Kehrsyn panted, "but time is passing."
The two guards looked at each