The Prime Extract

Chapter 1

Leni watched her cross the cobbled street toward him; he waited as the horse-drawn buggies rode past before he got up from his seat in the shaded section of the piazza. She spotted him and waved, her fine little fingers wiggling in her white satin gloves. She didn't see the assassin approaching. Like everyone else in Gaza, this poor girl was oblivious; despite all her riches, she lacked any real awareness.

A breeze stirred the hot summer air. Leni saw how the citizens – seated, or walking in the wide piazza by the glittering, gargling fountain – bent their faces into the welcome wind. Near the eastern gate, a few children erupted in squeals of delight as they scored a goal in their foot-ball game; this commotion caused a few sosprey birds to take to the wing, abandoning their search among the cobbles for seed or spore.

The assassin, dressed like a gentleman, noticed the nearby flutter of movement, assessed it in the blink of an eye, and dismissed it as no threat at all. He was now only a few strides away from the girl in white gloves, Amos. Leni was walking towards her now, as if to simply greet her in the heat. He timed it perfectly so that he would arrive just after the assassin's strike – but it was a strike that never came, for Leni raised a tiny silver crossbow that had someone remained concealed, and with a simple movement that was almost casual, he fired into the assassin's eye a bolt of steel and deadly venom, saving his true love's life in the same instant.

What followed, Leni had also practiced dealing with many times before: the panic, the cries, the faces of people terrified by a sudden crisis. He remained calm; he surrendered the silver crossbow easily to the first person to demand it; but during all that ensued, he never let Amos off his arm. He held her close, and she wept a little, burying her face in his shoulder. This didn't make him feel as gratified as he'd hoped, but he pretended at great passions, and held her while the emotions took hold of her.

How lucky they all are, he thought to himself as the aftermath unfolded. All they have to do is react. I alone among them all must plan, must see, must act.

It didn't take long for the Gaza-folk to uncover the little knife that the slain assassin was holding, and once this was revealed to the crowd, they lost all possible animosity for Leni, who now was thereafter perceived as a hero. They saw exactly what he'd wanted them to see: a common man who had bravely saved a beautiful woman from becoming the victim of a terrible crime.

Amos saw more in him than this, but not much more. When she composed herself and pulled away from him enough to look up into his eyes, she experienced in that moment an expression of pure love and adulation. She didn't say anything at all; this wasn't the first time he had saved her, and it wouldn't be the last. She let herself fall against him, her white gloves up against his chest, and as she closed her eyes, she let her soft lips touch his.

Leni kissed her, and kept his eyes closed while he did so, just long enough that he could form a perfect picture for all those that looked on. When he drew away from Amos, however, someone near at hand asked the question that naturally she should have asked.

“By the salt of the six seas, how did you ever see such a small blade in his hand?” asked an old man with a waxed and curled mustachio, who was evidently a far stretch more shrewd than all the rest.

Meeting the interrogator's bright blue eyes evenly, Leni lied: “I have trained myself to perceive all kinds of dangers. You think that you are safe in this great city, but the simple truth is that, at any moment, our fair sun might explode and burn us all into cinders and stardust. It would do you well to remember that Death is forever nipping at your heels; maybe then you would learn how to truly live.”

The shrewd old man shut up quickly after that. There came no further questions – not because there were none to ask, but because the Gaza-folk who had clustered about them had no wish to be embarrassed in the same way as the one among them who had spoken up.

Anyway, there would be many more questions, and much harder to answer. The extractors were surely on their way, and in their offices, Leni would undergo a long, grueling ordeal involving inquisitions and investigations.

It hardly mattered. Amos was safe – saved yet again – and Leni had already a great deal of practice in dealing with the authorities. He knew exactly what to tell them; he saw every move he had to make in order to extricate himself from the extractors; he saw far too much in any case.

They were coming, he felt them, could almost hear the clink of their green-gold armor as they marched through the piazza. Leni held Amos closer, smiling, while he turned his face up toward the glaring noontide sun, and let himself experience for just a moment the kind of dazzling blindness that he sometimes envied so much in those that surrounded him.