The back of the palace nestled right up to the craggy foothills of the mountains. Zig-zagging staircases were cut into the stones, some leading upwards to terraces in the foothills where there were other buildings, much smaller than the palace, but by the look of them they were still mansions for nobles and lords.
One broad staircase led to what appeared to be a servant's entrance on the rearmost wall of the palace. Catt could see people moving up and down it, carrying things, going about palace business.
She felt she would be conspicuous standing there at the bottom of the stairs, casing the entrance, so she retreated, returning to the front of the palace, and seated herself on a marble bench underneath one of the trees in the square. This seemed like a popular place for people to linger, and she felt she could loiter here without attracting attention. She spent some time watching to see who was going to or coming from around the left side of the palace. After a bit of observation, she began to be able to characterize the typical sorts of people who seemed to be using the palace's rear entrance.
There were servants and cleaners, and a few people who looked like craftspersons, carrying tools or paints. There were also occasionally some executioners, which suggested to Catt that they served as palace guards. The grim irony of their being the King's protectors while at the same time being destined to be her murderers galled Catt's sensibilities, but she put those thoughts aside.
The main type of person using the rear entrance were porters. She watched them going back and forth, wearing the white sleeveless uniform with the yellow and orange badge of the Cook's Guild, and carrying big baskets and covered trays and pairs of bags on shoulder-yokes.
The Cook's Guild Porters accounted for more than half of all the persons she observed that were moving in the direction she cared about. It made sense that fine food would be brought to the palace, after all, the Unburning curse meant that kitchens inside the palace would be useless. The large number of porters suggested to Catt that this wasn't simply for the King's table, rather there were probably quite a lot of important and hungry people in the palace at any given time.
What if the King was holding some kind of a banquet today? Catt wondered if today might be a uniquely bad day for her to be sneaking in to keep a dinner date, but then again, maybe this was just a normal afternoon, and maybe there were always that many porters. Perhaps they even delivered other things besides food? Could they also serve as the city's Royal Mail? Porters delivering messages was actually rather less of a stretch than executioners serving as guards.
As Catt was watching and pondering, she suddenly realized that one of the people she was watching was watching her back.
A man wearing a porter's uniform was making eye contact with her. His ears and lower lip were covered in silvery rings and studs. Catt recognized the man she had knocked down in the Smokefields a few weeks past.
The man had clearly already recognized her. Hatred was gleaming in his eyes, and he changed direction and began approaching her.
Catt could feel her heart beat faster, but she forced a charade of calm.
"You!" spat the man, "Don't think for a minute that I forgot about you!" He reached a point a few paces away from Catt's bench and stopped.
Catt affected confusion. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"
"Unlicensed carrier!" growled the man, the words dripping with spite as if this was the worst obscenity he knew how to voice.
"What's your problem?" Catt asked, holding out her empty hands. "I'm not carrying nothing."
"I ought to give you the beating I owe you!" said the man, taking a step closer.
Catt rested her elbows on the back of the bench with calculated nonchalance. "Really? You're gonna attack me? Right here In the square?"
His bluff was called. She could see his eyes shifting quickly back and forth, and taking in the number of witnesses.
"I'll get you," he said menacingly, "When you least expect it. Next time you won't see me coming."
He turned his back abruptly and walked away.
"Okay, nice chat! Bye!" Catt mocked.
She watched him leave the square as she assembled the rest of her plan in her head.
The moment the man disappeared around the corner of a distant building, she was up, and hurrying in the same direction.
Catt was almost at a run when she reached the street that he had gone down. She caught sight of his back in the distance, and dropped back to a walk.
She tailed the man all the way out of Old Bakak, and into the Marketday district, closing the distance carefully, but keeping far enough back to avoid notice. He showed no sign of suspecting that he was being followed.
Catt guessed that the man was heading for the Smokefields, and she figured she had to act before he reached Sausage Row, with its heavy foot traffic.
When she saw him turn down a relatively deserted side street, she made her move.
Catt sprinted, closing the distance between herself and the man in a matter of seconds. She pounced with all her momentum, while simultaneously grabbing at his shirt. The clean execution of this surprise maneuver was essential to the success of her attack.
A lone passer-by yelped at the sight of her tackle, and the man, alerted, started to turn about, but he was too late. As Catt collided with him, she dragged his whole shirt upwards towards his neck. His arms went up, both to defend against Catt's onslaught, and to defend against his impact with the ground.
As they both crashed into the ground together, skidding and scraping across the street, Catt rolled right over him, and dragged his shirt completely inside-out over his head. For an instant he was blinded and his arms were entangled, and Catt managed to land a couple of vicious blows to his torso with her knee before he wriggled out of his shirt entirely, and rolled clear of her.
In an instant he was on his feet again, center of gravity low, fists clenched, muscles coiled, ready to fight back and fight hard.
Catt barely saw this, because she was already hightailing it away from him, fleeing with all the swiftness of a wild rabbit.
"Yeah, you better run!" shouted the man. "You better run, Coward!"
Catt noted the triumphant tone to his shouts. He believed he had won. He believed that his dexterity had saved him from a mugging, and that his ferocity had frightened away his foolish attacker.
Catt left him behind as she rounded a corner. A joyous grin was stretched over her face. She had won. The gambit had worked perfectly. She had gotten away without a scratch, and she still had the shirt in her hand– the white shirt with its beautifully embroidered official Cook's Guild Porter's badge on the right breast.