Writing and Stuff by Anthony Chatfield

The space between each house was minimal at best, but it did bear the benefit of having no windows as men and women like this had no desire to look into the home of their neighbor. Brutus writhed his way into the space and started shimmying down the alley way, trying to remember which street actually connected to the central district where the royals would be living. He was not sure where Sarina would actually have her abode though so he would first need to find out where she lived. At first he assumed it would be in the inner city, but with a few more moments to consider, it could easily be one of the homes next to where he was standing. Her parents were the richest in the city, but they were still just outer royalty and a merchant.

Brutus considered for a few more moments, drawing upon what had once been an encyclopedic knowledge of the Upper City aristocracy. He finally decided that regardless of how they felt about merchants, even Willemshire’s nobility would allow someone with as much money with Sarina’s father to live within the richer quarters of the Upper City.

He did a quiet loop back out of the back end of the alley and almost screamed in pain when he kicked a can lying on the curb – it shouldn’t have been there. The sanitation in the Upper City was unparalleled, constantly maintained to ensure the utmost cleanliness. It was not like them to miss even a can – it must have just been dropped there. Instinctually, Brutus jumped back into the shadows of the alley just as a man coughed from above, hanging his half drunken, half naked torso out of the third story balcony of some lonely widow’s much too large house. Brutus cursed softly and winced again as he leaned back against the brick of the alley way and the muscles in his body that had only a few hours before been battered and bruised called out in pain.

Waiting in the sliver of darkened alley as he was, Brutus had a few minutes to think things through, to consider what had happened to him already that day. First, he had taken on a case solely because he needed the money and without thinking about what it was the woman in the slick dress had needed from him. That wasn’t like him at all. It was almost too much unlike him. Second, he had been beaten over the head and then battered by Under City goons twice within 24 hours. Third, he had gotten a nice old merchant killed simply by talking to him a little too long about something he wasn’t supposed to know about.

This was not the kind of case Brutus liked to take and it was already giving him a pretty good idea of just how much trouble he was probably going to run into before he got anywhere meaningful with it. Shit, right now he was crouched into a bruised up ball in the side alley of the Upper City where City Guard patrolled four times each hour, on the quarter hour. One false move and he’d be strung up in the central square for everyone within a two mile radius to walk by and poke sticks at. This was not his idea of a good time and he was already running dangerously low on options.

After what seemed an eternity, Brutus edged his head out from the shadows and looked up. The window had been closed and the candle light extinguished. He was free to move and he’d better do it quickly because he hadn’t seen or heard a guard in almost ten minutes – they would be by any time now on their quarterly rounds and if Brutus wasn’t out of the way by then, his return trip would be all too short indeed.

Running his hand over a two day layer of stubble (damn, he kept forgetting to shave) and shuffling as quietly as he could, he stumbled out into the street and up around the bend, into the inside ring of the city. Within seconds he was able to find the old passage ways he’d used when he was in the guard, what looked like basement entrances with elaborate hand locks on them built into one in every six houses on the inner ring of homes. The guard was not appreciated walking around the Inner City at night – it made the nobles uncomfortable, so one of the Guard Captains had installed a series of tunnels under the city about a hundred years or so ago so that rounds could still be made in accordance with the law without routinely angering the men and women who the Guard was trying to protect. It was silly and Brutus had routinely completely about having to climb underground to protect the ingrate slobs who slept so comfortably above them when he was a patrolman.

Rubbing his hair with a sweaty palm and slipping down the moldy stairway into the tunnels below, he touched down none-too-gently and immediately slipped into a nook he somehow half remembered. The tunnels were not lit – it was up to Guard members to bring their own torches – and so Brutus was going to have to operate on memory alone – something his alcohol addled brain was none too keen on – to get to where he needed to be.

Running his hands along the walls and finding the notched he remembered – small pinky sized square notches that told him where to turn and which direction he was walking – he started down the tunnel, trying hard not to step into the often times puddle-damp floor between him and the next stairway. He carefully picked his way along, trying hard not to stumble with his bad leg and hoping that he could avoid any guards.

A sudden splash as someone dropped down into the light pool followed by a shout behind him told Brutus that he wasn’t about to be so lucky this evening. “Hey, you! What are you doing down here?!”

Brutus bit the inside of his cheek and made the only choice he had – he ran.

chatfielda Freelancing blog novel, Brutus weaver