The Silver Crown

46.

I hurried down the corridor, afraid of what would happen if I were seen without an escort. From Camus's words I knew that the cells the royal family were being kept in were underneath the kitchen. I was on the second floor so I found a staircase and hurried down. I didn't know how much time I had before Tobin woke up or before someone found him.

I wandered through the compound, starting at every noise and trying to read the words on the signs. Every minute that I was here was another minute that Tobin could wake up or that I could be discovered.

I heard a noise from around the corner and I rushed over to a door. I glanced at the chalk but didn't have time to try to sound out the letters before I yanked the door open and dove inside.

My entrance went unnoticed by the stacks of chairs and tables in the room. I slowly got to my feet, feeling new bruises beginning on my elbows and knees from my recent acquaintance with the stones that made up the floor.

The tables and chairs were stacked on top of each other in front of all three walls, even in front of the window. I hopped onto one of the tables and stretched out, listening carefully in the hall to make sure the people I heard before had walked past this storage room. If they came in, I was dead for sure. Although maybe I could make it to the window.

I scooted over to the window and looked out. I was on the first floor so the ground wasn't a long jump. There was even a tree right outside the window that someone could latch onto and shimmy down if they didn't want to jump. They were a ton of trees, actually, and growing really close to the building.

I pushed on the glass pane and it swung open with only a little squeal from the hinges. I stuck my head out and saw what I had only just begun to suspect. This wasn't just the outside of the building; it was the outside of the entire cloisters. The building was built right into the north wall and this window could get me easily out into the forest.

I now had the beginnings of an escape plan, but the problem was once we got into the forest. The nearest inhabited area that I knew of was either Kings City, quite a ways down the main road to the southeast or a small village that I had often heard travelers speak of called Morris that was half a day's walk the other direction. The Red Priests would easily be able to find us. We would be on foot with children and they on horses. Not to mention, it was their stretch of the forest so they had the second advantage of knowing the landscape.

Nefarious doings were my specialty however, so I didn't sink into despair just yet. I took another glance in each direction to check that I didn't see any sentries. When we had arrived I had noticed that guards were only stationed at the front gate, but only a sloppy thief assumed that nothing changed.

And, once again, I was a thief. Only this time I was stealing what I had helped to capture.

I pulled myself out the window until I was sitting on the sill, my legs still in the room and my eyes facing the wall. The stones were rough and easy to climb even for someone who was not as experienced as me.

The wall around the cloisters was only nine feet tall but the building stretched another ten. Once I reached the roof, I pulled myself up, my arms straining; I hadn't done enough for the last three months. Getting my hair brushed hadn't kept up my muscle strength.

The roof of the building was flat and made of stone, just like everything else. I stood and walked across the roof, not worried that anyone could see me because I was the highest person around. When I neared the edges of the roof, I got down and crawled, but I made my way around the entire roof, trying to find some way that I could use it to my advantage.

While lying on the edge of the roof and watching the priests moving around the bailey, another prediction of mine was proved true: no one ever thinks of the roof. Not one brother ever looked up.