But why would he have locked her in?
She was already feeling uneasy and now dread flooded in. Perhaps he had come to his senses after she had fallen asleep and could no longer manipulate his feelings. Could he have fled to summon the Dochte Mandar?
That decided her. She had to leave.
Maia tried the door handle again. The door itself was sturdy and she lacked the strength to force it open. What other options did she have? Her eyes went back to the window and she remembered how she had climbed out of the garret window in Lady Shilton’s house to see her father. She went to it and it opened freely, without even the hint of a squeal. The scent of the flowers in the planter box filled the room. Maia stared down and judged that the street below was too far to jump. She rushed over to the bed and pulled down the long veils and began tying them together. Then she added some of the bed sheets and fastened one end to one of the sturdy posts.
Her stomach churned with worry as her ears detected the sound of movement on the lower floor. Boot falls thudded and tromped. Voices murmured. Maia hurriedly stuffed her spare gown into her pack and flung it closed. She swung it around her shoulders and then took the makeshift rope to the window and tossed it down. After testing the strength of the knots, she climbed up onto the window sill and quickly climbed down to the street below.
The air was chill—the alley still full of shade. She started down the cobbled road toward the place where she had seen the scaffolding. As the highest structure in the vicinity, it would give her a good view of the city. She pulled her cloak hood over her head and folded her arms, walking briskly. The alley was empty.
She realized she had more than one problem. She could not speak Hautlander, and she did not know where she was. Opening her mouth to others would quickly reveal her as a foreigner. She knew that all the kingdoms were perpetually at war with each other, and if her identity was discovered, she would be a ransom target. If they discovered her brand, she would be dead.
At the end of the street, she turned and walked through several more twisting alleys before she reached the scaffolding. There was something familiar about the place. She had never been to Hautland before, but it felt as if she had dreamed of it. The scaffolding surrounded the construction of an abbey, that was plain enough. Maia stared up at the progress, the stone blocks seated on top of each other. There were large wooden cranes and ropes and pulleys, and huge barrels and crates were strapped down nearby. She could hear the lowing of oxen, but they were fixed in pens nearby and all the manure had been swept and brushed away. What a clean city.
The abbey was long and very skinny and tall, jutting up above the houses like a giant spike. Maia walked around the grounds, amazed at the construction. Even though it was not finished, she could see the finished abbey in her mind’s eye, with a huge spike-like steeple that was high enough to pierce the clouds. It was a different design than she had seen in any of the other kingdoms she had visited. It was bold and sharp, like a sword thrusting up through the heart of the city.
Maia thought it would help get her bearings if she had a better view, so she walked over to the nearest portion of scaffolding and started to climb. She ascended platform after platform, rising up until she was higher than the lowest rooftops. Then she went higher still, climbing up above the larger mansions. The wind teased the edges of her cloak, but the movement helped keep her warm. From above, it was a strange and interesting city; with so many steep-roofed buildings crammed together she could hardly see the streets. The roofs were so steep in pitch, she could only see the edges like blades of grass.
Turning around and gripping the scaffolding poles, she opened her mouth in wonder as she continued to survey the city beneath her. Three more abbeys were under construction, each one with the same spike-like steeple. She quickly got her bearings and, by turning around, realized that she was on an island, surrounded by a river. It was roughly a circle, though lopsided, and every part of it was covered and paved. The ground was relatively flat, not at all like the island abbey of Dochte. But she could tell that the Hautlanders were hastily building a city to rival that of the ancient Dahomeyjan abbey. Towering walls surrounded the island, and huge wedge-shaped battlements had been built on the other side of the river, with an enormous jagged moat carved into the ground. The city was protected by two channels of water, she realized—the river, meandering north among green hills spotted with trees and, not too far distant, the sea. She was on the northern coast of Hautland. It amazed her.