There is a loud bang downstairs, then another: the sound of the door hitting the dirt floor.
I look out again, trying to gauge the distance to the ground. Too far, I decide. If they heard me, or if I hurt myself, I’d be done for.
Then I look up. The eaves hang low over the window and I wonder… I hear someone poking the fire, footsteps sounding closer to the stairs, and the time for wondering is over. I climb out on to the windowsill, my back to the night, and reach up, feeling beneath the eaves for a beam. An experimental tug reassures me as much as anything could, and I lift myself up, standing on the small frame and leaning my elbows on the roof. Cold air whips behind me and I’m paralysed by fear.
Then I hear a man’s voice. “There’s an upstairs,” he says, the accent Lormerian. Not soldiers, then.
But there’s no time for relief. The muscles in my arms are screaming as I haul myself upwards, biting my lip as I feel the skin on the knuckles of my right hand splitting again. My upper body lurches on to the roof, the sound muted by the thatch. For a wild, terrible moment my feet can find no purchase; I wheel my legs frantically before my fists grip at more thatch, and I swing them up, one foot then the second reaching the beam. Thank the Oak I’m wearing breeches, I would never have made it in skirts.
Beneath me I hear the sound of footsteps, two sets, thundering up the stairs, and it frightens me so much that I nearly let go.
I lie on my belly, the satchel wedged beneath me, holding my breath.
“She went out the window,” another voice says, and to my surprise it’s female, though as gruff as the man’s, and as Lormerian too. “Look, there’s footprints in the dust on the bed. She jumped.”
“Without breaking her legs? No chance. She could be on the roof,” her companion replies.
“You’d better take a look, then.”
My stomach drops when a pair of large hands with hairy knuckles appears inches from my face; I can see the chewed edges of his filthy nails in the moonlight. I’m readying myself to kick out at him when the thatch pulls loose and I hear him swear.
“She’s not up there. Thatch is rotten; she’d be on the ground with more than a broken leg if she’d tried. You’re right, she jumped. Must have heard us and took off.”
“She probably heard you coming a mile off, you were making such a racket.”
“She can’t have gone far; her cloak was still warm. And she left her food. Might be she’ll come back for them when she thinks it’s safe. We should wait it out.”
“She had two bags, remember. The other one’s gone. And there’s no sign of the horse. I wouldn’t come back, in her shoes. I’d put as much distance as I could in.” The woman’s words are laced with certainty, and her male counterpart grunts his response.
I hear their boots moving away, on the stairs, and I take a single breath before realizing that if they come around the rear of the house and look up, they’ll see me, clinging to the roof like a spider. I shuffle to the edge, but the man has pulled away the thatch I’d need to use to get back into the house.
I have no choice but to stay where I am for now.
I hear them leave and wait, braced for the moment they’ll come around and see me, or look for tracks, find my horse and know I’m still here.
Then I hear a muffled thud from inside the house and my limbs lock. They didn’t leave after all. They waited. They know I’m here; they tried to trick me. I hear the stairs creaking, feel someone below me, waiting in the window. They stand there for a long time and I can feel my heart beating frantically, in my chest, even in my fingertips. Then, mercifully, I hear stairs creak again, and then silence.
Long minutes pass with me gripping the roof for all I’m worth, my breath shallow, my limbs trembling. The wait becomes unbearable, and I lean closer to the edge, listening. Have they truly left? When I alter my grip on the thatch it pulls free.
I have to jump, or I’m going to fall.
Lief and I used to jump from the hayloft into the barn below after harvest,