The Dark Citadel (The Green Woman) Read Free Page A

shoulder. Fear made her peer into the stairwell
with the creeping sensation she was being watched.
    Looking down over the banister, she shivered with
the certainty that something was waiting for her in the darkness beyond the
fused bulb on the second floor landing. She peered harder into the gloom,
convinced the shadows moved, swallowing the feeble light as they advanced. The
hair at the back of her neck prickled, and she tried to step backwards, but her
feet refused to respond. Darkness welled up from the floor below, catching at
her ankles, sucking her down.
    Fear surrounded Deborah as she groped wildly behind
her for the door handle. Her hand caught at empty air, and she realised she was
halfway down the stair and the darkness had thickened, pushing her on. She had
just time to give a startled cry before a dark bulk rose up out of the shadows.
    The dark bulk sucked in his breath and tottered
dangerously backwards. The suffocating darkness retreated, leaving lingering
rags of hatred, and the eyes of Deborah’s givenfather narrowed in anger.
    “Where d’you think you’re going like that, little
bitch? After your stinking whore of a mother, maybe?” Titus glared in fury at
Deborah, his face inches from hers and his labouring breath heavy with alcohol
fumes. Deborah wrinkled her nose and turned away, her fear transformed into
disgust. “Answer me, whore’s whelp!” He punched her shoulder, furious at her
defiance.
    The blow shocked more than it hurt, and unable to
contain her anger, Deborah spun round, red hair flying, her own hand raised to
strike.
    “And what if she was a whore? She was a thousand
times better than you, you filthy drunken animal!”
    In the silence that followed as Titus digested the
insult, Deborah could sense the tension in the air. Conversation stopped in the
neighbouring apartments. She knew the unseen men were listening; she could
almost hear their hearts beating behind the closed doors. Strangely, the fear
she sensed now was not her own. Sweaty and damp, it exuded from the loud-voiced
men. They were afraid of her.
    She wanted to feel triumphant, to savour their fear
as if it was sweet vengeance. But it wasn’t sweet; it was miserable to feel so
much loathing coming from all the people around her. She bit back a sob but
refused to lower her eyes.
    It was Titus who turned his head away. Even when he
was drunk he could not hold his givendaughter’s gaze. “Serpentspawn,” he
muttered and pushing Deborah aside blundered up the stairs.
    * * * *
    Deborah edged past Fatima, her givenmother, who blocked the doorway as she
gossiped with Goodwife Artemis across the landing. She could guess what they
were talking about; the evening air had been full of whispering, commenting on
the latest edict that had been announced to the men at evening devotions in the
temples. The Ignorant population was to be culled; it was the only solution to
the nutrition shortage, the Elders said.
    Deborah had overheard the men talking on their way
home. The Ignorants had brought it on themselves, they said. If they weren’t
such pilfering, idle layabouts! No doubt Fatima would have her usual cruel
commentary to pass on to the neighbour. Deborah paused in the doorway of her room
to listen.
    The women all over the city had picked up the news
and were murmuring indignantly among themselves. Some were shocked; some like
Goodwife Fatima were not. She folded her beefy arms across her bosom and nodded
sagely to Goodwife Artemis from the apartment next door.
    “Of course it’s not pleasant,” she said, her small
eyes glittering with malice. “But they have to do something, don’t they? If the
Ignorants have been thieving the nutrition reserves, obviously the Elders have
to show they won’t stand for it.”
    Goodwife Artemis nodded in agreement. “My Jeremiah
heard the excess nutrition hasn’t done them any good either. In fact, the
vengeance of the Wise God has begun.”
    Goodwife Fatima leaned even closer to