Chapter Thirteen #2
Seraphina fought the urge to silent the menace of a woman with an expert blow to her shrieking mouth.
She let out a string of irreverences and turned on her heel instead, exiting the alley and darting into another, taking a right, then a left, another left, making her way around the main market, to the other side.
She heard more yelling behind her, then heavy boots giving chase, but the watchmen were too late, and she managed to evade them.
When she was certain she was safe, she stopped and doubled over, breathing heavily. She was out of practice.
This was impossible. There were already descriptions of her plastered to the walls, doors, and lampposts, and the second someone recognized her, they would start shouting for the city watch.
What was she supposed to do now? Her plan had been to make herself look somewhat presentable, find something to eat, then figure out a way into Kr?henstein Academy atop the hill.
With no documents on her person, she didn’t know how she would convince the porters of her identity.
But now that she was being hunted as an escaped convict, even approaching the academy would be like signing her own sentence, whatever that may turn out to be.
Damn it, this really wasn’t going her way.
What if Rune had been here? Would he have found a solution?
It hurt to think about him in that cell, beaten up and bleeding.
Alone. At least she was free to move, free to make her own destiny, as disastrous as it was.
She had clean clothes on her back, and she had a stick.
She was quick, light on her feet, and she knew how to fight if she had to.
She would figure it out. There was no way she’d let herself be caught.
No way she was going back to prison, even if the temptation slithered through her mind every hour or so, whispering that he was there, and she’d find him again if only she went back.
Back for him. Would it be so bad?
No. She was just not thinking straight because of the hunger.
Seraphina loitered around as the day grew colder and the sky darkened.
She mingled with the crowd, head hung low and covered with the hood, listening for heavy boots and the clink of weapons that always announced the approach of a watchman.
She hovered around food stalls but found no way of stealing even a piece of fruit without being noticed.
She quenched her thirst at the public fountain, and that helped keep a headache at bay.
Her feet hurt, so she found a spot to sit on the ground, out of the way.
Slipping a hand into her right boot, she massaged her sole, pressing her fingers into the sore spots.
She crossed her legs and gathered her skirt and cloak about her, cocooning herself and gently rocking back and forth in an attempt to soothe herself and chase away the cold.
Soon, she would have to find a place to spend the night.
Something landed in her lap, and she jolted upright.
Her fingers went searching for the tiny object, and she was surprised to find a coin.
One kreuzer. So, the people who passed thought she was a beggar.
She certainly wasn’t beneath begging if it bought her food.
She waited another half hour, but no one offered another coin.
The reality was that Ingolstadt was full of beggars.
On church steps, and even on the other side of the market from where she sat, there was competition.
Beggars lived day-to-day, and the soup kitchen was the only reason they didn’t starve.
At night, they would huddle in the doorways of public buildings and hope the watchmen took pity on them and let them be.
Seraphina sighed and licked her lips, her stomach a gnawing beast that was starting to consume her from within.
There was something that might help her earn a few more kreuzers.
She cleared her throat and tested her voice by starting with a soft hum.
When she felt ready, she sang the lullaby first, projecting her voice outwards even as she kept her head low and covered, only her lips and chin visible to anyone looking at her.
“Sleep, little one, sleep,
Count your bones from head to feet...”
Two more kreuzers joined the solitary one in her lap.
This lullaby always made people nostalgic for their own childhoods.
She noticed a few women had stopped to listen to her.
Tonight, a few children in Ingolstadt would be sung to as they were tucked into bed.
Seraphina had reminded their mothers of the lullaby that spoke of the goodness of relics, before the High Harvester had turned them into weapons and started a war.
When the lullaby was over, Seraphina had six kreuzers, barely enough to buy bread.
But she was getting there. If she kept singing and no watchman noticed that her hair was blond and her eyes were covered with the strip of fabric Rune had torn from his own shirt, she might make enough to buy a piece of cheese too, and an apple.
Rune... She couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Before she knew it, she was singing the song he’d sung to her when she was bleeding and in pain, her own womanly body having betrayed her.
The day he’d left the cell to be interrogated by the sergeant, she’d discovered the rest of it carved on the wall.
Two more stanzas added to the first two he’d sung to her over and over, until she learned them by heart.
His voice had been low and vibrating. Hers was soft, high, and it swept over the market as more people halted what they were doing to listen to her.
“No gate to cross into sun-kissed yards bright.
No doors to slip through for a ghost astray,
No herbs, no elixirs; the grim dismay.
Of a grand bell, its ropes by frost made white.
No clean grave awaits where you can just lie.
Black funeral feasts and services mean,
Hideous priests, churches dirty and keen.
No peaceful winters where you can just die.
Oh, demons void of hell, Gods void of sky…
Mmm, demons void of hell, Gods void of sky…
No clean grave awaits where you can just lie…
No peaceful winters where you can just die…”
One would think the religious people of Ingolstadt, most purists and doctrinists if they had any allegiance to the Order, would find it blasphemous. Unless the dark times they all lived had convinced them of the truth.
Seraphina felt snowflakes land on her hands, cupped in her lap to catch the coins. An early winter this year as well. She knew half the people in the market square were thinking of graves.