She stared around the room. Even with the shutters thrown open, it suddenly seemed gray and dim. The room seemed to be closing in on her. A sudden urge to see the sky struck her, so strong that she was on her feet and shrugging into her coat without remembering her usual struggle with the cane.
Moments later she was outside the locked door and moving down the steps at a pace that, while not as fast as Simon’s rapid rumble, was still faster than she could remember moving in oh-so-long.
At the bottom of the steps, breathing hard, Ursula looked around. Even though the day was overcast, it still seemed light to her. People hurried by, wagons rattled as they passed, it was a scene of welcome activity. And the cacophony of sound—shouts, bits of singing, creaking carts, whistles—it all fell on her ears as energizing as the most lustily sung hymn at church.
Ursula suddenly realized that she was tired of sitting alone every day. The stories that Hans and Simon would share of their work and travels within the city made her hunger to see more. So she picked a direction and started walking.
One of the city watchmen passed her going the other way, swinging a truncheon from a wrist strap. She knew what he was by the funny cut of his coat and the odd tint of green cloth from which it was made. Simon had described it to her before, and Hans had made her laugh with his attempt to describe just what shade of green it was. All in all, she decided, acknowledging the watchman’s touch of his hat brim while examining his coat with an expert’s eye, puke green was—sadly—perhaps a very accurate judgment. It had to be a dye from Lothlorien Farbenwerke. No dye from before the Ring of Fire could be that strong, that vivid, and that repulsive all at the same time. If she had to bet, either the dye or the dye-work had to be a mistake, and whoever made the cloth found a way to sell it to the city government.
For some reason that thought cheered her immensely, and she continued down the street with a smile on her face. She didn’t see the watchman turn and watch her for several moments, then pull out his constable’s whistle and blow a series of notes.
* * *
“Here he comes.” Pietro’s whisper caused Ciclope to stir where he leaned against the alley wall.
“Is he by himself?”
“One guard.”
Ciclope stood straight and rolled his head around, listening to his neck crack and pop.
“Anyone looking this way?”
“No,” Pietro muttered as he pulled his gloves on. These were the very thin gloves he’d used back in Venice when he used to enter homes by second floor windows; thick enough to protect his hands—barely—yet thin enough that he could almost feel the lettering on a coin through them. Even now, some years since he had last essayed an unheralded visit to a rich man’s home, they were still his favorite gloves to wear when something outside of society’s normal rules was to be attempted.
The accountant—Ciclope still hadn’t bothered to learn his name—was a man of regular habits. He walked the same way to work every day, at the same time. He went home at the same time every evening. And every Friday he walked from his desk at Schiffer’s main office to the hospital work site, carrying the workers’ payroll in a satchel. Most of the workers engaged in building the hospital addition still had little faith in the modern post-Ring of Fire proliferation in checks and drafts. They were used to dealing in cash, and they wanted to be paid in cash. Hence the accountant’s weekly trip.
This alley was along the accountant’s accustomed path, along a bit of a jog to the street so that part of it was not in full view from every direction on the street. So the two saboteurs set their little snare up in it.
“One man with him,” Pietro repeated in a whisper after hazarding one last peek around the corner of the building. “Big guy, on the street side. Our pigeon is walking on the inside.”
“Right,” Ciclope said. “Let’s do this and get out of here.”
They were standing with their backs against the wall that would remain out of the accountant’s view, watching for his shadow to appear. Ciclope’s eyes were pointed to the ground just outside the mouth of the alley, but he actually heard footsteps before the shadow came into view. The big guy must be big, he thought to himself.
The shadows came into view. An instant later, Pietro made his move. The wiry Italian was much stronger than he looked to be, and the accountant found his arm grasped by a hand like steel that yanked him through the air into the alley. His surprised squawk died just before it could issue forth when something round and harshly aromatic was crammed into his mouth.
Ciclope made his own move as soon the accountant flew by him, stepping out to grab the guard by his arm. Although he was a strong man in his own right, Ciclope didn’t attempt to duplicate Pietro’s feat. He settled for simply spinning the very surprised guard into the alley, following through with the motion to slam a shoulder into the man’s gut, which stopped that shout before it could proceed any farther than the inhale. The big man’s “Oof!” was punctuated by a surprised look and a gurgle as Ciclope slammed a knife into the guard’s chest, very expertly, at such a place and angle that it pierced his heart. He was dead before he even knew what happened.