Page 99 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

She looked, half expecting to see a tidal wave or Mount Iou erupting, but the man hadn’t meant that at all. The sun had come out, sudden and bright, in a patch of vivid blue sky. The snow had stopped. She must have been imagining it, because there was no way in the world she could have heard it through the glass, but perfectly clearly all the same, she caught the minuscule popping of ice melting.

‘Another round,’ the warden decided. ‘To spring, gentlemen. That’s the first blue sky we’ve had since October.’

Mori was the only one who didn’t join in. He was still bent forward, his breathing visible. His guard tried to coax him into taking a sake cup, but if he heard, he didn’t show it. He still hadn’t made a sound. She wished he would; the others might have understood better that he was dying, inch by inch, in front of them.

Something thumped into the window right by her. They all jumped, except Mori.

But it was nothing awful. Someone had thrown a snowball. In the courtyard below was one prisoner, unwatched, standing there bright red in the snow. He smiled at her and threw another snowball. This one hit the pane above her head.

‘Er, is he meant to be …’

‘Why are there unaccompanied prisoners throwing snowballs at my bloody office …’ The warden was already on his way downstairs.

Little thorns pricked along the back of Takiko’s neck. All the time they had been talking, there had been a strange quiet from downstairs. It didn’t sound like five hundred men were trying to settle in or jostle for space in the cells, or telling their stories to another five hundred. There hadn’t been any shouting among the guards either. She looked down into the courtyard again. The man was still there. So were three horses, new ones from Kabato. They were ambling about unattended. They hadn’t even been unsaddled.

‘Say,’ she said. ‘How many guards did you come with?’

‘Only about fifteen of us in the end. But all the men were too cold to do much about it.’

The doctor was trying to talk to Mori, who still couldn’t hear him.

A gunshot exploded at the base of the stairs and the warden yelled. It electrified everyone and there was a rush for the stairs, for guns, for gloves in the bitter cold. Something smashed and a horrible, mechanical klaxon whined deafeningly across the courtyard. She caught Mori’s hand, meaning to go after the others and get out through the front gate, but the courtyard burst into red with running men. They were all out of the cells. She pulled the hidden tower door open instead.

Mori wouldn’t move, or couldn’t. Takiko had to lock one arm around his ribs and lift him up the first step to make him go. He must have been starving for all the time he had been in prison, because it wasn’t difficult.

The second they were through, she tilted the door shut. The dark was complete, except for one tightrope line from the keyhole, barely broad enough for a grasshopper to walk. Only a few seconds later, men bounded up the stairs and laughed in the strange hyena way of people who want to destroy something when they found the warden’s wine. She drew back from the door, horribly aware that she couldn’t close it completely without being locked in.

Although Takiko wanted desperately to watch, and know if anyone noticed the door, she stood back from it so that the light couldn’t catch in their eyes or their clothes. She could hear the men prowling and smashing just beyond it. Beside her, Mori swayed queasily, as if he wasn’t sure about the floor in here either. She held his shoulder. She could feel the bones underneath. Her mouth had gone so dry it felt like she’d drunk a whole bottle of vodka.

If she left him here now, he would be dead in five minutes. The men outside would kill anything that didn’t run away. They were feral now, she could hear it in their voices, and so abused that they were owed some killing. She could get out on her own, she was pretty confident of that. She was fast. It would bloody hurt if she smashed the window and jumped through it, but she’d be alive, and they’d be distracted by Mori.

And then: she’d be free. Free from that rancid fear she’d carried around ever since she’d seen Countess Kuroda smash into the floor at Yoruji.

She would be mistress of Yoruji, and free to marry again; more sensibly this time. Nobody would be surprised to find she had managed to shed an inconvenient husband. Kali the Destroyer.

Mori was watching her, almost formless in the dark except for the shine of his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but he was frightened; and not as if he were worried she might decide to leave him. He thought she already had. There was no hope in him, and when he looked away from her, his eyes filled with a sadness she’d never seen in anyone before. She could almost see all the stars of his already-faint possible futures winking out. She saw him accept it, too. He didn’t try to argue.

The room beyond the heavy door had gone quiet. She caught his hand and edged out. The men had gone. Takiko hurried them both to the stairs. This time, at least, Mori moved with her.

Downstairs, more men were raiding the guards’ lockers for coats and scarves, at least thirty of them, and already small fights were breaking out over the supplies. Takiko snapped back behind the corner of the stairs, one arm flat to Mori’s chest to stop him moving.

‘No,’ she hissed when he ducked under it.

There was instant silence when they noticed he was there. Everyone got out of the way. He looked back for her and she had to go fast to catch up, willing no one to attack him for his coat.

One of the five prisoners she’d snatched from the firing squads came up to her and for a second she thought he was going to hit her, but he only fell in alongside.

‘On your way out?’

‘Very much so. Do you want to come? I’ve got to get this man to Tokyo.’

‘Who is he?’

‘My husband, and like an idiot he’s let them drug him to the eyes. I’m going to steal a ship if you’re up for it.’

She had a flare of relief to see that the other four were with him. They closed around Mori and her in a protective semicircle, and nobody even tried to stop them.

The courtyard was chaos, but none of the prisoners knew about the delivery gate behind the kitchens. The little road down to the town was quiet, even though, around the other side of the hill, there were yells and shrieks. Takiko had no coat and the air was bitter, but the town wasn’t far, and bobbing on the gradually melting sea, right by the pier, was a small but sturdy ice-cutter called Narwhal. They were the first there.