The Last of the Runners

Kyrin waited over a week before visiting Mrs Bruntler again. He had needed time to adjust to the thought of running. The more he thought about it, the more the wild dreams he had began to make sense: the journeys in the forest and the strange houses. They were pointing him towards running, encouraging him to get away, maybe even showing him part of the way. However, the other reason for not visiting Mrs Bruntler was that he did not want to arouse his mother’s suspicions.

Wandering through the lanes to the little square, he had expected to find her sitting outside but the upturned bucket was empty and the shutters were closed. When he knocked, he had to wait a long time before he heard the bolt be drawn back and the door open a crack. When she saw who was on the doorstep, she almost pulled Kyrin through and then bolted the door.

“Were you followed?” she whispered.

Kyrin shook his head, though he was not sure.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“The Magister has a new assistant,” she said, “And they say it’s a failed runner who he has persuaded to betray all those who helped him. The Magister plans to shut down the running network and stop the runners for good.”

“Does this mean I should start sooner?”

“I don’t know, Kyrin. I don’t know how dangerous this Sub-Magister is going to be.”

“Are you in danger?”

“No more than anyone else. There are Watchers all over the city. If the worst happens, I shall have to try to get to Villombre, and I hate travelling at this time of year. Come now, we have no time to waste.”

They sat at the kitchen table and Mrs Bruntler talked of the different routes to Villombre and how to find help on the way, the signs that told a runner that food or a place to rest would be offered. She gave him no names, preferring to keep them secret.

“If anyone helps you and trusts you with their name, it is a doubly precious gift. Do not thank them with betrayal. It is safer not to ask someone’s name and it annoys the Magister if you get caught.”

At the end of their time, she let him out a different door and gave him another set of directions to the main road. The door was closed and bolted the instant he was outside. Walking along the dark lanes, Kyrin did what he could to remain in the shadows, forever checking back over his shoulder in case he was being followed. Several times, he stopped in a shadowy doorway in order to listen for footsteps, but there was nobody behind him.

When he got home, he was just about to lift the latch when a tiny patch of white in the doorframe caught his eye. He reached out for it. It was a slip of paper, good quality paper, folded into a small square so that you could hardly see it, wedged between the doorframe and the wall. He unfolded the paper to find a single sentence written in characterless capitals.

“TELL THE WOMAN IN THE COLOURED HOUSE SHE HAS SEVEN DAYS.”

Kyrin felt his heart go cold. Who had left such a message? Who knew he had visited Mrs Bruntler? Who thought he would take a message to her? Seven days until what? Was this message connected with the new assistant to the Magister that had so frightened Mrs Bruntler? So many questions and no one to discuss them with. He had to go into the house and talk to his mother about school and about his visit to the main library (the excuse he had given for his late return from school that day) and discuss whether he should aim to be an apothecary or a merchant. What a pain to have to discuss and plan this life that would never be, when he really wanted to talk about his plan to run to Villombre and join the writing school where Mr Bruntler worked. According to Mrs Bruntler, a green and blue dragon decorated the front of Mr Bruntler’s house and the door was in its gaping jaws and you could learn to direct your imagination into the written words that filled the many bookshops of the shady city. If only it was easier to get there.

“TELL THE WOMAN IN THE COLOURED HOUSE SHE HAS SEVEN DAYS.”

How was he going to do that? When could he do that without drawing attention to himself or her? And how did this impact on his plans to run? Why was everything SO complicated?

He lifted the latch and went into dinner.

A hooded shadow watched him go inside.

“Do you make progress, Magister?”

“Indeed, Head Learner. The Sub-Magister is recovering well from the strain of his conversion.”

“And?”

“We can start to roll up the network that supports the runners, Head Learner.”

“Are you sure of this, Magister? The Rector is becoming most unpleasant.”

“He muttered something in his delirium about a coloured house,” wheezed the Magister, “which I thought was just nonsense, there being no coloured houses in Villblanche.”

“Absolutely. It would be disloyal to have a coloured house in this city.”

“Then one of my rats, my Watchers, said he’d heard of a coloured house in the maze of streets that run down to the Lattern Gate.”

“Really?”

“So I sent them down there and, true enough, they found one, bit faded, but with colours beneath the soot – blue, red and yellow on a little square right in the middle of that warren. We’ve started to watch it, but we’ve seen nothing. I fear the rats may have been a little too obvious for the woman has stopped sitting outside.”

“This does not bode well, Magister. It had better not lead to another failure.”

“Once the Sub-Magister is fully recovered, I will verify the information and start to move.”

“I hope you understand the consequences of failure, Magister.”

“Oh, I do, Head Learner. Absolutely.”

“Good. I’m sure you would not want to move to live near the Lattern Gate. I wonder whether you would find it a quiet neighbourhood.”

“I understand you, Head Learner.”

“Make sure you do and make sure your precious Sub-Magister delivers as promised.”

The slip of paper had frightened and excited Kyrin in equal measure. He had put it in a small pouch and hung it round his neck, scared to leave it in his room or trust it to a pocket. Following his dinner, he had searched for clues as to how the message had found its way into that crack by the doorpost. There was nothing, not even a blade of grass bent down by a foot other than his or his mother’s, as if the messenger had flown to the door to leave the message.

That left him with another problem. How was he going to get the message to Mrs Bruntler and so soon? How could he explain such a late return from school to his mother? Could he invent another trip to the library? It would seem a bit strange, yet he had to get the message to her. She had trusted him and offered to help when no one else had even realised there was a problem. He could not ignore the message. He had to warn her. There was no choice. He had to go. He would go – tomorrow.

“Have you never noticed that runners always go before the new moon?”

The Magister blinked at his young assistant, who smiled at him from behind a pile of manuscripts.

“Surely you didn’t think it was just a coincidence?”

The Magister went from blinking to spluttering as he tried to formulate a response that did not show he had no idea that runners disappeared at the same time each month.

“After all, it stands to reason. No moon. Easier to slip away undetected. Next one is in six days. It would be quite a coup if you could catch one at the starting gate, wouldn’t it?”

The Magister continued to splutter like a kettle coming to the boil. He had not imagined that having an assistant, even one he had selected so carefully, would be quite like this.

“Would you like me to take a couple of men and the steam dogs out that night? The doctor says I should be strong enough by the end of the week.”

“No, thank you, Sub-Magister,” the Magister snapped. “I would not want you to tire yourself. I’ll set a fresh watch on the coloured house in a couple of days. Lull her into a false sense of security, and then – bang! – we drop in and nab her and her new runner before the new moon.”

“An excellent plan, Magister. Almost flawless, I might say.”

The calculus lesson dragged on as never before. The numbers and equations hemmed him in and the clock did everything to delay the end of the school day except go backwards. Kyrin had made sure not to give his teacher any excuse to detain him. He had to get to the city and deliver the message and then get home before his mother began to worry. As if he had not enough to worry about, his teacher set a long homework. Twenty questions to be done by the morning. It would be a late night whatever happened.

The bell, however, released him to his new quest. Without hesitation, Kyrin ran off towards the city. It was not a long journey, a couple of miles at most and one he had made many times, though never before with such urgency. He went in through the Main Gate as usual before cutting off into the maze of streets and lanes that lay between the Main and the Lattern Gates. At the end of the first lane, he turned left and then immediately right and hid in a doorway. He waited, not daring to breathe, but no one was following. The mysterious warning had made him more cautious. Hurrying up the main road in a crowd was one thing. It was quite different alone in the dark lanes. Kyrin still found them mysterious and scary. Those few people he met looked away and yet he always sensed they were looking at him as soon as they had passed, though he never caught anyone doing it.

Kyrin made his way through the lanes as quickly and carefully as he could. His zigzag route towards the little square brought him at last to the start of a narrow alley that dropped into the square opposite Mrs Bruntler’s house. He stopped short and pulled back round the corner.

There was a man in a grey cloak looking into the square at the other end of the alleyway. He was leaning against the wall a few feet from the opening into the square, his eyes set on the door in the blue wall.

Kyrin backtracked and tried a different lane down into the square. There was another grey-cloaked man leaning nonchalantly against the house on the corner, trying to look as inconspicuous as a grey-cloaked man could do.

More backtracking and Kyrin found the last route into the square was also watched.

What to do now? Could he find the other end of that narrow alleyway which led to the side door without any of the Watchers seeing? He ran back along the maze of lanes, trying to work his way round the square to find the alley that led to the back of Mrs Bruntler’s house, forever straining to hear the city clock strike, for he knew he had to head home when it struck five or he would be in deep trouble. He was sure it had already struck the half just as he found the last entry to the square was guarded.

How many minutes disappeared as he darted along the lanes and passageways he could not tell, but he found the alley at last. However, at the last corner, he checked and found that the sun had managed at that moment to find a way to illuminate Mrs Bruntler’s side door and betray any who approached it to the Watcher on the other side of the square.

There was, however, a walled yard at the back of the house. The route from where he stood to the wall was in shadow. The wall was high, but perhaps if he ran and jumped, he might be able to get over and, unless he made a noise, he ought to escape the Watcher’s attention.

He took a deep breath, sprinted towards the wall and jumped for all he was worth. How he jumped that high he did not know but he managed to get both arms on top of the wall and, in one pull, was over and down into the tiny yard of Mrs Bruntler’s house.

Four paces across and surrounded by walls, there were rosemary and lavender plants in pots that scented the air. None of the surrounding buildings had windows looking down into the yard, much to Kyrin’s relief as he went to the door and knocked. There was no response. He knocked again, holding his breath this time in case he had missed something. Still nothing. He tried the latch carefully. It lifted and he opened the door as quietly as possible and slipped inside.

The house was dark, darker than usual for Mrs Bruntler had good lamps in most rooms. However, none were lit today. He found her sitting at the front of the house, a way back from the window, watching the Watchers.

“Mrs Bruntler?” he whispered from the doorway.

She did not move from her seat or turn but Kyrin saw her left hand point to that side of the room. He stepped in quietly, following the signs given by her hand until he was in the front left corner of the room, where she could see him without taking her eyes off the Watcher across the street. She put her hand up to her face to cover her mouth.

“He can see me watching,” she said quietly, “and I don’t want him to think I’ve seen anyone else. How did you get in?”

Kyrin told her.

“Well done and not seen either. Well done indeed.”

Kyrin told her about the scrap of paper and the message.

“Seven days?” she said. “When did you get this?”

“Yesterday,” Kyrin replied. “After I got back from seeing you.”

“Seven days,” she muttered. “Whoever sent this know what happens before the new moon. But how?”

“What happens, Mrs Bruntler?”

“Youngsters run, Kyrin. They run on the dark night when no new moon can betray them. And that dark night comes in seven days. Six now actually.”

“And are they going to run?”

“I think they’d better, my dear, or they’ll never run again. A warning like this on its own would suggest they know where they start. Those Watchers out there proves they do know.”

Kyrin heard the town clock strike five. He had to go or he would be in more trouble. Mrs Bruntler signalled to him to wait. She left the room and came back a few moments later with a small notebook.

“Take this,” she said. “Keep it hidden from everyone and try and find a boy called Antol. He’s just started at the Training School and is preparing to make a run.”

“I know him,” said Kyrin. “He was in the same class as Gan.”

“Let him know he should start on the moonless night before the new moon and head for Contefay. But not from here. Maybe you should go with him.”

“Do you think I’m ready?” asked Kyrin.

“Ready or not, I think you may have to go.”

“And the book?”

“A list of signs you may find on your way. They tell you where to find help – somewhere to stay or a meal. It’s the last one. It’s been impossible to find anyone I could trust to make copies. Antol has spent some time with me, learning to understand them. Together you can use the guide to help you.”

“Does the book say where the signs are?”

“No, boy,” said Mrs Bruntler. “It tells you what the signs are. It is up to you to find them.”

The door shook as the heavy knocker crashed against it.

Mrs Bruntler looked at Kyrin.

“The side window. Quick now.”