Chapter 20: The River Stairs

We ran.

I took my skirts in both hands and followed Wynne down the back stairs.

We ran through the scullery and out into the kitchen yard.

The clerk was twenty paces ahead of us, a small grey man hurrying under a satchel.

He did not look behind him.

He went through the garden gate, and down the long slope toward the river.

"Do not shout," I panted.

"I am not shouting," said Wynne. "I am saving my breath for hitting him."

The palace stood on the river.

At the bottom of the lawn a flight of stone steps ran down to the water.

A boat was waiting there with two oarsmen.

The oarsmen wore green, the colour of the Rook liveries.

The clerk reached the top of the steps, and he stopped to catch his breath.

It was the only mistake I saw him make.

Wynne did not slow down.

She hit him from behind at a full run, with her shoulder in the small of his back.

Both of them went down on the wet stone.

"Let go!" he squealed.

"Give it here!"

She had a hand on the satchel strap.

He had both hands on the buckle.

I reached them and put my knee on his wrist and my whole weight behind it.

"You are hurting me, madam, this is an outrage..."

"You are on the duke's books, I hear," I said. "What is your name?"

He stared at me.

He had pale watery eyes and a sour smell, and there was ink in the creases of his knuckles.

"I do not know what you mean," he said.

"You know me. You saw me at Rook Hall."

Something went across his face then, fast.

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