Not long after, a closed carriage clopped past. It looked like the one she’d seen outside the front door. Pressed back under a leafless bush, Tiaan doubted that she had been seen. The driver, swathed in greatcoat and fur hat, stared fixedly ahead, no doubt desperately wanting to get home.
It was strange being out alone at this hour. Everything had a misty, unreal air. Fog crept up the street, assuming shapes reminiscent of dream or nightmare. Shadows waxed and waned as the moon drifted in and out of hurrying clouds. The staid buildings of Tiksi joined together to form fairy castles or hellish dungeons.
Tiaan was not frightened. There was little crime in Tiksi, since everyone above the age of six worked at least twelve hours a day. The mist and shadows were her friends.
Approaching an intersection, she heard the clump of hobnailed boots. She ducked under a hedge, holding her breath as a watchman paced by. He walked like a man who had been on the beat too long, looking neither left nor right.
A sudden gust lifted her robes, replacing the layer of warmth with freezing air. Her exposed arms were aching. Tiaan hurried on. She had to get on the mountain road well before dawn. As soon as it was light, the carriers would move out with their daily loads. No doubt there’d be a reward for her and it would be difficult to escape a hunt up there. There were few paths and, at this time of year, little chance of survival off them. Dressed like this, no chance.
She made it to the western gate unnoticed. A sudden flurry of sleet caught her out in the open. It wetted only the outer layer of her clothing, and her hair, but ice water began to penetrate her blanket boots.
The gate, when she reached it, posed a greater challenge. The guard was pacing up and down. She could see no way to get past him.
TWELVE
Tiaan waited near a small well, across the way from the open guardhouse. Though a brazier glowed inside, it must have been freezing in there. No doubt that was why the guard was marching so vigorously. It gave her an idea.
The pattern of his movements did not vary. He walked fifty paces up the road inside the wall, striding furiously, turned, paced back, looked across to the gate and continued for another fifty paces. Each time, his back was turned for less than a minute, not enough to climb the gate.
Tiaan needed a diversion. Taking the bucket off its hook, she hid it in the shadows across the street. As soon as the watchman turned away she scampered to the guardhouse, her blanketed feet making no sound on the cobbles. Inside was no more than a cupboard, a row of hooks on which hung two oilskin coats, and a pair of boots below them. She spilled hot coals from the brazier into the pocket of one oilskin. It began to smoke. She knocked the other coat down, tipped the brazier onto it and was about to dash out when she heard the guard tramping back. Thud-click, thud-click as a metal heel-piece struck the cobbles.
It had taken too long. Tiaan crouched down, praying that he did not see the smoke rising from the oilskin, or come in to warm himself. If he did she was undone.
The footsteps stopped opposite the gate. Tiaan prepared to defend herself, hopeless as that was. She held her breath. Silence.
The footsteps resumed, thud-clicking away. Tiaan blew on the spilled coals; the oilskin burst into flame. She dashed out, hid across the road in the shadows, then made a noise vaguely like a cat screaming.
The watchman checked, looked around, and continued his pacing. By the time he came opposite the gatehouse the oilskins were blazing as high as the ceiling. He ran inside, cried ‘Bloody cat!’ and raced for the well.
His curses when he could not find the bucket would have disturbed the corpses in the cemetery outside the wall. Pelting down the street, the guard hammered on the front door of the first house. ‘Fire! Fire! I need a bucket, quick!’
Tiaan scuttled across to the gate, lifted the bar, rested it on its bracket and closed it behind her. She gave it a hard shake. The bar fell into place.
Outside, free at last, she ran up the track in the direction of the manufactory and did not stop until she had turned the corner, out of sight. Sitting on an ice-glazed rock she wept for joy. The moon glowed through the mist like a distant lamp through frosted glass. The trees were mere outlines, black as ink. A shooting star carved a fiery path across the sky before bursting into fragments that swiftly faded. It seemed to be pointing west. Was that an omen?
Knowing that her troubles were only beginning, she continued on.
The moon had fallen behind the mountains. Dawn was some way off. The stars, when visible through the racing mist, gave off just enough light for it not to be called pitch dark. Tiaan trudged up the path, following little more than instinct. She was freezing cold, dampness having seeped through the layers of clothing long ago. The wind stuck to her skin as if she wore a single layer of gauze. One blanket boot was already wearing through.
She kept on until the black sky was touched with the faintest blush in the north-east. The blankets were soaked, her feet in danger of freezing. Turning off the path, Tiaan went up the hill, avoiding places where she would leave tracks. The crest was bare save for a broken watch-tower of crumbling green slate and the moss-covered skeleton of a mountain pony. Down the other side she found shelter among up-jutting rocks and twisted trees. There was little risk of a fire being seen here.
The sun came up as she was gathering firewood, casting long conifer shadows that, low down, blurred into the mist. It was eerily beautiful. Tiaan warmed herself by the blaze until her foot coverings were dry. She was thinking about her father, wondering about his Histories, how he had lived and died and how he came to meet her mother. Had it just been a transaction in the breeding factory? She could not think so.
That set her puzzling about the bloodline register. Why did they need such a detailed record, if the idea was simply to produce as many children as possible? The mating details were clear – never more than one man in the same month. It did not seem to agree with what she knew about the place. But what if, she thought idly, the breeding factory was a place where children were bred with particular talents? Had her father been chosen on that basis? What a horrible thought!
It was lovely putting her hot boots back on. After heaping snow on the fire, she returned to the path. Another hour went by. It was nearly midday. The blankets were wearing thin again. Brushing wet ice off a log, she sat to remake her boots. Tiaan had just finished the first when she heard raised voices. A search party? She rolled off the other side of the log, hoping that the shadows would be enough to hide her.
Something cracked. She had broken the ice on a puddle and freezing water seared her side. She crouched behind the log, cursing her ill-luck.
Shortly a group of people ran past, as if fleeing for their lives. Since they were going downhill they could not be searching for her. They must have come from the manufactory or the mine. In the fog she did not recognise any of them, though one wore a carrier’s cap and another an escort guard’s uniform.
Tiaan ducked her head as they passed, though she need not have. They looked neither right nor left. What could the matter be?
After a few minutes she judged it safe to come out. Her wet sheets had frozen. She cracked off the ice, re-bound her other foot and headed carefully up the track.
It wound around a buttress of crumbling granite, turned sharply into a chisel-shaped gully, crept across a shear zone where the rock had weathered to greasy clay speckled with quartz gravel, then carved out the other side again. In the gully the path was shaded by tall pines. She edged through the gloom. Whatever they had been running from, it could not be far away.