Page 5

The run brings her to another alley.  A still life filled with city leftovers.  One shoe.  A ripped shirt.  The front half of a cat skeleton.  Indistinguishable paper bits mashed between clumps of dirt and leaves.
No food.  She nods, acknowledging outwardly her new found hunger.  She tries to imagine hunger in the detail she imagined stabbing Thaxton.
Instead, her mind returns to the market.  Where there is food for sale, there is food wasted.  She walks again, dreaming of feasts made from bread scraps and fruit rinds.
The crowd merges with a smell of cooking meat to lead her back to the market.  Within 100 steps the air is filled with the scents of sweets, spices and sweat.
The sun is an hour from setting.  Some stalls are closing.  Most are open, their merchants still calling out prices to the wandering multitudes.  She walks by a shuttered fruit stand and plucks two discarded apples from the ground.
Walking and eating, she spots two men in purple who are watching her.  She slows down, slips behind a bread stall and sits on the ground.  By the time she has finished both apples, neither of the guards has made their way to her spot.
She picks up a half eaten roll from under the wheel of a cart.  To the left, she spots a girl with darting eyes carrying a bag of bread running.  She tries to follow but it's like chasing a drop of water over glass.  She slows down and chews the bread.