The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter (Riyria Chronicles #4)(55)
The alley between the cathedral and the gallery was wider than the one in Little Gur Em, but it was congested. This helped their pursuit. Royce kept two rows back from their prey, which required slowing down to let others pass. Moving on little legs, the dwarf wasn’t speedy. The sun was on the horizon, its dying light already lost to them in the stone canyons of the central city, where the buildings were so close Hadrian thought he might be able to touch the walls on both sides of the street with his sword tips.
The crowd began to thin as they followed a street that curved northeast. The buildings here were residential, shorter, less ornate. Hadrian spotted women on small wrought-iron balconies beating rugs, and numerous chimneys pouring smoke. The stone houses gave way to wood with stucco and timber uppers, and the number of stories lowered with each successive block. By then, the sun was gone, the hazy afterlight competing with streetlamps.
The street they followed spilled out onto another, where a long wall ran along the one shoulder. Eight feet high, the barrier was made of brick and topped with metal spikes. When the dwarf reached it, he turned and followed along its length until he reached a gate. The wooden double door was open, and the dwarf passed through. Royce paused to study the latch and hinges for a moment. They were simple iron drawbolts. The oddity was the presence of latches on both sides. The doors could be used to lock people in or out. With a hesitant glance at Hadrian, Royce continued after the dwarf.
Within the confines of the wall was a completely different world of tightly packed wooden shacks. The widest streets inside were the size of the narrowest alleys outside. Here, too, were cart vendors, but narrow as the streets were, the vendors nearly blocked them, causing pedestrians to squeeze around wagons and barrels. Royce and Hadrian had only traversed one block when Royce stopped. With concern, he looked up and down the street.
“What is it?” Hadrian asked.
“We’re in trouble.”
Hadrian looked around. They were on the cobblestones of a narrow block gripped between shabby shacks where laundry hung from the sills of open windows. Residents gathered in small groups, some in front of doorways, others at intersections around trash fires, warming themselves. The alleged driver of the ducal carriage had stopped at one of these and talked with those huddling around it.
“What’s wrong? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you see?”
Hadrian looked again but couldn’t find a threat. “See what?”
“We stand out,” he declared. “Literally. Everyone here is short.”
Hadrian looked again. Royce was right. All along the street, not a single person was more than four feet tall, and nearly all the men had beards of considerable length that were frequently braided or bound with ribbon.
“What do we do now? Walk on our knees?”
Royce shushed him, guiding Hadrian into the shadow of a porch. The thief focused on the group at the intersection’s fire, where the driver had paused to chat with five other dwarves. They mostly stood with arms folded across their chests, but on occasion, they would hold out their hands to the heat.
At that distance, Hadrian couldn’t hear what they said, but he suspected Royce could. “What are they saying?”
“Arguing about the weather,” Royce replied.
“How can you argue about weather?”
Again, Royce motioned him to silence, and Hadrian leaned against the grayed wall of the building where they sheltered. In the window, a sign hung. Maybe it said HELP WANTED or ROOM TO LET, but Hadrian couldn’t tell. It wasn’t written in any language he recognized. The window itself was oddly low, and the pair of rocking chairs on the porch looked to be for children.
This is like a miniature version of the world.
“I feel like a giant,” he told Royce. He turned back to the ring of dwarves around the fire, where a heated argument was growing; two of the dwarves gesticulated wildly, thrusting fists over their heads. Even Hadrian caught the occasional shout of “Don’t tell me what is and what isn’t!”
“These people really take their weather seriously.”
“Not arguing about the weather anymore,” Royce reported.
“What are they talking about?”
“Don’t know. Something to do with the Calians, mir, and the coming of spring. Our guy isn’t too popular, either. Nor is he happy with them. And nobody likes the duke. And—” Royce tilted his head to listen. “They’re holding a meeting, an important one in the Calian Precinct. Sounds like it has something to do with an alliance.”
The streets were emptying, and windows shuttered as the night erased the day’s earlier promise of coming spring. The cold of winter had returned, reminding everyone it wasn’t yet finished. The driver hoisted his sack and bid a less-than-fond farewell to those around the fire. He headed off into the darkening streets. Royce waved at Hadrian, and together they followed.
The dwarf stopped at a tiny butcher shop. There he haggled in an unfamiliar language over one of three chickens that hung from the porch rafters. A great deal of pointing, scowling, and foot stomping accompanied the conversation. The bird under debate was so small and scrawny that Hadrian questioned whether it was a chicken at all. If not for the white feathers, he might have guessed a crow. In the end, the driver reluctantly handed over coins and took the pair of legs, swinging the chicken as he walked. Then he stopped at a wheelbarrow where what appeared to be an elderly husband and wife sold firewood. The driver picked out three splits as if he were choosing produce in a market. Burdened as he was with an armload of wood, his sack, and a scrawny chicken that he continued to heedlessly whip about with the swing of his arm, the dwarf continued until he came to a tiny shack. The wood siding had been weathered to a dark gray. The upper story jutted out over the lower, creating an overhang that shadowed the door. A light shone from inside, and without a knock, the driver entered.