A Sampling of a Project I'm working on.22:49 Feb 10 2017
Times Read: 297
Chapter One
Rowena kept her eyes fixed on the man in the black cloak, weaving through the bustling, market-day crowd with purposeful strides. She navigated effortlessly behind him, far enough back that she could lose herself in the throng if needed, but not so far back that she would lose him. On either side of the narrow square, tall, bricked buildings loomed, their cracked and faded facades wearily watching the festivities below. Clotheslines stretched between balconies overhead like strands in a complex web, knitting dingy tenements together. Filthy children dressed in rags darted about underfoot, shouting and waving knotty sticks at one another while their haggard mothers in their threadbare, homespun dresses gossiped and clucked like hens, beating rugs which sent great clouds of dust into a square already caked with filth. Ancient, bearded men sat on every street corner, hats and tin cups sitting empty and forlorn before their wan bodies, already half-gone as they leaned against the brickwork. Waifish women lurked about the edges, eyes smeared with kohl and cracked lips painted a lurid red, their insubstantial bodies on display like rotten fruit in an abandoned store window. Above the rest were the shouts of the merchants, peddling wares from across the continent in confident, enthusiastic tones.
“Fine Floranan silks, here! Only the best! You there! Miss! Take a look at this! Blue as the sky and as soft as a summers’ breeze-“
“Rubies! Emeralds! Diamonds! From Lady Tarra’s personal mines!”
“Apple tarts! Sausage rolls! Roasted mutton!”
Rowena kept her eyes forward, never leaving her target, her stride purposeful and even. The cloaked man paused, looking about himself as though lost. She turned toward the nearest market stall, filled to the brim with dried herbs in massive woven baskets. In her periphery she watched as the man ducked into a squalid alley, and she turned slowly to pursue.
The alley in question was dark, the walls blackened by smoke from the fires that beggars would light to keep warm at night. Piles of filthy rags were heaped atop the prone forms of those too old or sick to make it to the square to beg. Rats skittered over bodies and bones picked clean of every scrap of meat. Narrow, damp, and rank. At the far end of the alley was a curtained doorway, above which hung a sign that had once been painted with bright, cheerful colours. Now, however, it was as faded and forlorn as its surroundings. “Madame Minerva’s Magical Sundries,” the sign proclaimed. Rowena was familiar with the shop, and its proprietor, Agatha, or “Minerva.” The dingy room boasted low ceilings and a shroud of cobwebs, rats, and bogus enchantments, but little real magic. Rowena pulled up the hood on her own cloak, pulling it close around her, and lowered herself into the corner beside the door. She curled her legs up into her chest and pulled the hood over her eyes as she listened.
“Hello, good sir,” Agatha simpered, “and what can I assist you with on this fine day?” Rowena could almost see the old woman’s gnarled grey hair, knobby knuckles holding a patchwork petticoat aloft as she curtsied. She would offer a thin-lipped smile that had once been winsome, but had been marred by the years with few remaining teeth.
“Yes,” the man’s voice cracked, and Rowena had to fight a chuckle. The poor fellow, clearly unused to navigating the city’s underworld, must be losing his nerve. “I have… an order… somewhere…” the man trailed off, patted his pockets, “Here!”
“Let’s see, dearie. Mandrake. Plenty of mandrake. Wanderer pine sap… Got a jar of that somewhere. And…” Agatha paused, “What’re you playing at?”
“I-I… I know you carry it. Madame,” the man’s voice was firm, but not confident.
“If I did, and I’m not saying I do, whispershade don’t come cheap,” she hissed.
Rowena’s heart leaped into her throat. Whispershade. What on earth does he need with whispershade? Foolish man. She exhaled slowly, willing her shaking hands to settle. She was a professional, after all.
“I have the coin.” She heard the tell-tale jingle of a coin pouch, and a sizeable thud as he placed it on the counter. Agatha grumbled, scooped the pouch off the counter, and shuffled into what Rowena knew was the back room. A moment later she returned.
“You didn’t get this from me, you hear?”
“Absolutely.”
“I mean it. I don’t want to have to send my boys after you, but I can’t have noses poking ‘round where they got no business”
“I understand, Madame.”
“Pleasure doing business with you. Now get.” Smack! Agatha must have swatted the man. He yelped and hurried to the door.
Rowena lowered her head again, feigning sleep as the man hurried past, taking no notice. Once he’d rounded the corner, she leapt to her feet to give chase. There! He hurried through the throng, bumping peddlers and merchants haggling over their wares as he went. Rowena scanned the square a moment, searching for the tall, thin agent she knew had been watching her from across the square. Did Dennon think I wouldn’t notice? She found him after only a moment. She nodded to him as he leaned in a doorway picking at dirt-caked fingernails. He nodded back, then whistled the melody of a popular folksong, the lyrics, Rowena knew, told of a comely barmaid who was not fond of underclothes.
Across the square, the shouts of commerce grew heated.
“I’m telling you, these rubies are nothing but coloured glass!”
“How dare you accuse me of such a thing!” A rather plump merchant in a ridiculous, peacock-green waistcoat, shoved another man,thinner and more practically dressed than his angry purple sparring partner. The vested man reeled back his fist and landed a hit loud enough to draw the attention of more than a dozen people– the man in black among them. Pandemonium ensued. Soon, the shouts of the merchants were joined by encouragements from the crowd, who pressed in close on all sides. Rowena sprinted to join the throng.
“Give ‘em what for!”
“In the jaw!”
“That’s the way!”
The cloaked man scrambled, a nervous pup in a cage, searching about himself for an opening in the crowd, shoving past the onlookers desperately. Rowena slipped a hand inside the man’s cloak as it brushed against her, closing her fingers around a lumpy pouch and withdrawing her closed fist, quick as lightning. She tucked her spoils within her own cloak, then slipped back into the teeming masses, into a darkened alley, and out of sight.
COMMENTS
-
Neinmortlan
06:20 Dec 13 2018
Well written... you've got s gift
Chainmailbikini
07:09 Dec 16 2018
Thank you. I'm very self-conscious about my writing.