The Shadow at the Gate by Christopher Bunn Page A

the growling in his stomach rated more attention than a crowd cheering and he turned back to the confectionery.
    “Run along with you,” said the old woman behind the barrow. She shook her wooden paddle at him.
    “But I’d like to buy,” protested Jute. “I’m not a thief.” He jingled the coppers in his pocket and felt virtuous.
    “One for half a copper,” said the old woman, “and let’s see your metal first. I’ve had enough of you scamps today.”
    “I’ll take two,” said Jute grandly, and he tossed a copper piece on the griddle. The old woman scraped the coin off with her paddle.
    “All right, then,” she said.
    “Of course, my good woman,” said Jute, trying to recall how the Harthian lord had spoken. She whisked two of the hot confections into a twist of cotton and handed the lot over. Jute ruined the lordly effect by taking an enormous bite and nearly choking on the hot dough. The old woman smiled.
    “She’s about to start again,” she said, unbending a little.
    “Who?” managed Jute. He gulped for air and licked honey from his lips.
    “The Mornish girl. The singer.” The old woman gestured toward the crowd. “Been singing on and off all morning. Got a throat on her like a bird.”
    The singer started before Jute saw her, for the people were standing toe to heel and it took some doing to work his way through. The voice had a confiding quality to it, as if the singer sang for Jute alone. Each person in that crowd probably thought the same. Despite such intimacy, her notes soared up into the sky.
    She sings like the hawk flies , thought Jute.
    He edged between a stout couple dressed in the commonsense weaves of Hull. They made grumbling way for him and then closed up behind him like a sturdy wall fed on pork and potatoes. The Mornish girl was no girl, for the old confectionery woman would have regarded any woman under the age of fifty as a girl. The singer had the solid features of the mountainfolk, as those people, when along in years, tend to look like they have been carved from the stones of the Mountains of Morn. But the beauty of her voice overwhelmed all other senses. A man sat on a stool near her feet and played accompaniment on a lute. The singer stood unmoving, her arms at her side. Only her mouth and throat moved, buoyed by the slow bellows of her breast.
    “Hanno Col rode from Lascol forth
    on the first of summer’s day.
    The earth was green and tasseled gold,
    corn heavy with the rain.
    The wind blew him west, along the plains,
    toward an unseen shore.
    Where the keep of Dimmerdown stood,
    the sea knocking on its door.”
    The air around the singer seemed to shimmer, almost as if the sunlight had been caught by the woman’s voice and was coaxed to slow and thicken in attentiveness to her sound. Jute tasted honey in his mouth and was not sure if it came from the biscuit or the song.
    An arm clamped around his neck, nearly wrenching him over.
    “Jute,” said a voice.
    He yelped in fright. The arm tightened and a small face insinuated itself against his own.
    “Shh!”
    And then he recognized the livid burn and the tangled brown hair falling down around her face. She frowned and smiled in delight at the same time.
    “Lena!”
    “Quiet,” she said. “That old Demm is standing not three feet away and he’s allus been a nasty one.” She nodded. A gaunt rail of a man was standing in the front of the crowd. With one step, the man could reach them and grab Jute by the scruff of his neck. But the singer sang on and Demm stared at her with glazed eyes. Sweat slid down Jute’s back. Demm was one of the bashers who ran the docks for the Guild.
    “C’mon.” Lena’s hand slipped into his own. They threaded their way back through the audience until they were in one of the less crowded byways of the square.
    “Shadows, Jute,” she said, rounding on him. “Where you been at?” She stuck her small fists on her hips and glared at him.
    “Not here,” he said. His heart was