The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [128]
The blind assassin pulls the brocade bedcurtains almost shut. Then he joins the girl, squeezing the two of them as flat as possible against the wall.
The heavy door groans open. The girl watches a glow advancing across the floor. The Lord of the Underworld can’t see very well, evidently; he bumps into something, curses. He’s fumbling now with the hangings of the bed. Where are you, my pretty one? he’s saying. It won’t surprise him when she doesn’t answer, seeing that she is so conveniently mute.
The blind assassin begins to ease himself out from behind the door, and the girl with him. How do I get this damn thing off? the Lord of the Underworld is muttering to himself. The two of them creep around the door, then out into the hall, hand in hand, like children avoiding the grownups.
Behind them there’s a shout, of rage or horror. One hand on the wall, the blind assassin begins to run. He pulls the torches from their sconces as he goes, hurls them behind him, hoping they will go out.
He knows the Temple inside out, by touch and smell; it’s his business to know such things. He knows the city in the same way, he can run it like a rat in a maze – he knows its doorways, its tunnels, its bolt-holes and cul-de-sacs, its lintels, its ditches and gutters – even its passwords, most of the time. He knows which walls he can scale, where all the toeholds are. Now he pushes on a marble panel – it has a bas-relief of the Broken God on it, patron of fugitives – and they’re in darkness. He knows this by the way the girl stumbles, and it occurs to him for the first time that by taking her with him he’ll be slowed down. He’ll be hampered by her ability to see.
On the other side of the wall, feet hammer past. He whispers, Take hold of my robe, adding, unnecessarily, Don’t say a word. They’re in the network of hidden tunnels that allows the High Priestess and her cohorts to learn so many valuable secrets from those who come to the Temple to meet or confess to the Goddess or pray, but they have to get out of it as quickly as possible. It is, after all, the first place the High Priestess will think to look. Nor can he take them out via the loosened stone in the outer wall by which he originally entered. The false Lord of the Underworld may know about that, having arranged for the killing and specified the time and place, and must by now have guessed the blind assassin’s treachery.
Muffled by thick rock, a bronze gong sounds. He can hear it through his feet.
He leads the girl from wall to wall, and then down an abrupt, cramped staircase. She’s whimpering with fear: cutting out her tongue hasn’t stopped her capacity for tears. Pity, he thinks. He feels for the disused culvert he knows is there, lifts her up to it, offering his hands for a stirrup, then swings himself up beside her. Now they must worm their way along. The smell is not pleasant, but it’s an old smell. Clotted human effluvium, gone to dust.
Now there’s fresh air. He sniffs it, testing for the smoke of torches.
Are there stars? he asks her. She nods. No clouds then. Unfortunate. A couple of the five moons must be shining – he knows that from the time of month – and three more will shortly follow. The two of them will be clearly visible for the rest of the night, and in daylight they’ll be incandescent.
The Temple won’t want the story of their escape to become general knowledge – it would lead to loss of face, and riots might ensue. Some other girl will be tagged for the sacrifice: what with the veils, who’s to know? But many will be hunting for them, on the hush but relentlessly.
He can put them into a hiding hole, but sooner or later they’d have to come out for