Part 36 (1/2)

126.

MARTA said: ”How shall we use the broken gla.s.s?”

”I was rather counting on you to come up with an idea.”

He heard her sigh. ”I have,” she said.

She carefully drew the shard of gla.s.s toward her, with her toes.

She tucked her foot beneath her. Her fingers were cold; her feet were cold; she did not feel the gla.s.s in her fingers until the blood ran.

Palewski heard her give a gasp.

”Are you all right?”

”I have a knife, kyrie.” He heard the triumph in her voice, and said nothing.

At the same moment he heard the sound of the cellar door swinging open.

127.

KADRI had gone about thirty paces into the tunnel before the ground dropped away.

The breeze was faint, but it flowed steadily up the tunnel at his back. Carefully s.h.i.+elding the candle, he moved to the side of the tunnel and held the flickering flame out of the wind. He was standing halfway up a vaulted chamber thickly festooned with cobwebs that hung from the ceiling in hanks, spinning in the breeze. He shuddered, and peered down.

He wriggled forward on his belly.

128.

A shape broke from the shadows down the street. It was not the shape of a dog, but of a man.

Yas.h.i.+m edged to the side of the gate and put up his hand to feel the stones. His fingers found a crevice and his arm tightened.

Had the moon been any brighter, Yas.h.i.+m might have recognized the bow-legged walk of Akunin; had he stopped to watch, he would have seen s.h.i.+shkin step out from a doorway farther up the street, blocking his escape.

But Yas.h.i.+m did not stop to watch. With a sudden grunt he dragged himself up on his fingertips and scrabbled for a foothold on the wall.

Everything Kadri had told him about climbing vanished from his mind as he dug his toe into a crack and reached up.

The man on the street started to run.

Like Kadri, Yas.h.i.+m moved quickly, barely pausing to check his holds, using vertical fissures as well as horizontal, flinging hand over hand and using his feet to flail upward against the rough surface of the wall.

Akunin reached the base of the wall and lunged: Yas.h.i.+m felt fingers close around his ankle. He was gripping the stones above with one hand, the other searching wildly for a hold as he tried to break the pressure rapidly increasing on his ankle. But he could feel his fingers slipping from the stone and with it his balance beginning to move, driving his body away from the wall.

His free hand found a crevice between the stones and clutched at it: but it was almost too late.

Akunin held tight and dropped his weight behind his arm.

129.

MARTA and Palewski froze as they listened to a heavy tread descending the cellar steps.

Two thoughts ran through Palewski's mind. The first, that one of the men had been sent to kill them. Or that the sound of the breaking bottle had brought him down to check.

About the first possibility, he could do nothing-unless Marta could pa.s.s him the shard of broken gla.s.s.

Palewski felt Marta's hand close around his wrists, searching for the cord.

The man stopped. Then they heard him tramp upstairs again, and the door closed.

Palewski climbed slowly from the pillar, flexing his fingers.

Marta laid a hand on his arm. ”They are coming back.”

He c.o.c.ked his head, and heard the sound of someone sc.r.a.ping nearby. He tightened his fingers around the gla.s.s and put Marta behind him, covering her with an outstretched arm.

In the dark they strained their ears.

Palewski frowned, incredulous.

One of his favorite pieces was Chopin's tiny mazurka, the prelude in A major. He had practiced it all summer, with fairly good results.

It didn't sound too bad right now, whistled by Kadri between his teeth, from the far end of the cellar.

130.