“I see a light!” said Tariq.
The sun had just disappeared behind the mountains, and the sky above us was dark blue and blackening as we watched. Tariq was right: there were lights in the castle. Dozens of them in the main keep, though we could only see the topmost level over the wall. The Great Hall shone dimly, as though only a few lights were put there. The king and queen must have been taking their dinner somewhere else tonight. A few torches lined the walls.
The towers flanked the gate, and I had hoped they would not be the dark ones. It would be hard enough to climb the tower, and I didn’t fancy doing it close to the gate, where the guards were likely to be concentrated. Saoud pulled my arm, and the four of us began our long walk around the castle, careful and quiet, to check the other towers.
The castle in Kharuf was not overly fortified. There was no moat, merely a ditch, and the land around the castle had not been flattened or cleared. There was a village over the rise to the east, so we went westerly, and stayed as low in the heather as we could. We passed what had once been the outbuildings, where the hunters and falconers had stayed. Now they lived inside the walls of the castle—not out of fear for their safety, but because there was space for them and their animals. With the spinners gone, the weavers and seamstresses and tailors had left too, and their rooms were taken over by those who remained behind in the service of the king. There were no patrols, nor any sign of them, though we did watch the torches moving along the top of the wall, and knew that the soldiers there took their duties seriously.
At last we came around to the north side of the castle. This side was darker. I looked up at the towers. One had a lit window, but the other was dark. The candlemaker’s wife was right. That was our way in.
I took off my tunic, which was pale linen. Even with the dirt of the road on it, it would shine like a beacon against the dark stone walls. Saoud handed me his spare, dyed forest green. Wearing it, I would be well enough hidden, unless light fell on me directly, in which case I would be discovered anyway. My trousers were dark, so I kept them, but I left my shoes. Climbing would be easier in bare feet.
“Remember,” said Arwa, “there are other paths than up. You can go sideways and get just as far as you can if you only look in one direction.”
“I will remember,” I told her.
“Go slowly,” said Tariq. “If the mortar crumbles, they might hear you.”
“I will,” I said.
“Are you all right?” Saoud asked. “Is your head clear?”
“It is,” I told him. “Having something to do helps, even if it is not exactly what I want to be doing.”
He put his hands on my shoulders, and pressed his forehead close to mine.
“Be careful, my brother,” he said. “And come back to us.”
I tried to answer, but the words stuck in my throat. Instead I nodded, and slipped away from them, into the night.
I reached the ditch with no trouble, and paused to rub dirt on my face. It was brown enough on its own, in all likelihood, but I wanted to take no chances, and the dirt would make it more like the color of the night. I was about to brush my hands on my trousers when I remembered that Arwa sometimes climbed with dirt on her hands on purpose, to help her find grips. I flattened my hands on the earth again, and then rubbed them together so that the grit was all over my fingers and palms. Then I scrambled up the other side of the ditch, to the wall.
The stones were worn smooth by years of long exposure to wind and rain, but there were places between the blocks where I could find purchase for my hands and feet. I offered up a prayer to my ancestors, the ones who had come across the desert and brought magic with them, and began to climb.
I would have gone slowly whether Tariq told me to or not. It was difficult to find good places to put my fingers, and they had to bear most of my weight because it was even harder to find good spots for my toes. My arms ached before I was even halfway up. I thought longingly of the rope I carried on my back. At least I would have that for the way down.
Course by course, I made my way up the side of the tower. When I reached the level of the top of the wall, I had to move sideways to make sure I was on the outermost corner. There were guards on the walkway on either side, though they didn’t pass through the tower. I wondered, not for the first time, what could be inside. Saoud thought it was probably storage, but Tariq was less sure. I agreed with Tariq. There was nothing that needed to be stored up so high. The room ought to have been a guard’s office or lookout, and yet with no light, it could be neither of those things.