...go up the drain pipe to the roof.

You smile and remember that Job wasn’t caught on the job, but rather drunk in a brothel which he tried to burn down when he was apprehended. For his co-operation, he was pardoned for all crimes before that day. What makes you smile is the look of shock he had when he was still imprisoned for attempted arson. Drain pipe it is. The guard above makes another slow and steady pass as you ready for the climb.

As soon as his barely visible form turns its back to you, you move. You cross the distance to the drainpipe, a shadow gliding across the pale green grass to join its kin at the base of the building. You take a breath, grabbing the pipe and giving it a slight tug. Satisfied it’s not going to come crashing down, you start your steady assent up the building. Job used climbing powder, leaving chalk handprints up walls, on doors, and in the spaces where valuables once stood. This eventually led to his arrest. You reasoned, correctly, that chalk dust wouldn’t be a common import to a city centre, and that provided an easy trail to follow. It’s still baffles you that no one else thought of it. You never got around to asking how it helped climbing, but as you start to huff and puff and sweat your way up, you think you get the gist.

You take it slow, moving hands and feet one at a time, gently resting and easing them against the ceramic pipe and wooden wall before hauling your body up. After a painful minute, you pass up to the second floor. Climbing shouldn’t be so hard! What’s the point of being small if climbing is this hard? The thought doesn’t make sense but you don’t care. As you reach the top, sweat beading on your brow, you peek over the lip of the roof wall. The roof is slanted; both sides meeting in the middle and as tall as a man, favouring the traditional design used back in the principalities. Rough wooden planks run around the base of the short wall you look over, providing a small platform for the guard to walk along. You can’t see him, thanks to the tall slope of the roof in front of you, but you would guess he’s over at the far end of the building by now.

One of the drain pipes mounting brackets -specifically, the one under your feet- suddenly breaks. You lurch downwards, wall gripping arms suddenly pulled taut as they halt your fall. The sound of a grassy thud below is drowned out by your own heavy breathing and the inaudible groan of your muscles under your own weight. A shocked second passes, in which you realise that you’re not about to die, before your flailing feet scrabble up the wall and haul over on to the planks. You fall onto your back, looking up at the stars, and the gods twinkle back down at you in return, watching as you try to catch your breath. The story of Fool King Dunkan springs to mind; a man who made a great kingdom and built a vast tower to climb higher and higher over the men he ruled and closer to the gods, only for it to fall and destroy everything. Perhaps the drain pipe was your own foolish tower. Perhaps you are simply a fool. You smile like one and silently giggle at your own stupid recklessness; you haven’t climbed anything more strenuous than a set of stairs since you were a little girl, and climbing a mansion house drainpipe in the dark is a lot more challenging than your grandmother’s apple tree. Your snickering slowly abates as reality sinks in. You’ve gotten this far and you’re not going back that way. You stand up and ready to go but morbid curiosity pulls you to the edge. The pipe still stands, though looser for the lost bracket. You look down and feel your stomach fall the full distance. How many broken bones would that be?

Shaking it off, you follow the guard’s path along the wooden planks. They’re loose in places and bang and clomp unexpectedly as you tread on them. The building is roughly a long rectangle and going left from the drain pipe, you soon find yourself at the corner of the building looking along its full frontal length. At the very far end, smaller than ever before, you see the guard disappear behind the slope of the roof. You follow the path he took, trying to stay as quiet as the planks will allow without slowing down too much. To your left, the trees hide the village; only a few lights flickering through the leaves and the occasional moonlit right angles tell you there’s anything there at all. To your right is the roof and worryingly, that’s the more interesting sight. Grey slate tiles make up its length, shipped in all the way from the principalities. It must have taken a whole ship just to transport this many, maybe two. Worse, the roof, for all its wealth in material, is very poorly constructed; it sinks and bows in places from the poor repair of time but it’s more than that; lines that should be straight waver instead, and the tiles are all poorly aligned. You’re no roofer, but the original builders of this place evidently weren’t either. You can only assume that the original owner was too scared of heights to check the work.

You keep an eye out for a way into the building; a window or trapdoor of some kind. The guard hopefully didn’t climb up the side like you. You stay low as you move and slow down when you reach the middle so you don’t alert the front door guard below, but otherwise you cross the full length of the roof without incident or discovery. As you reach the far end and the slope of the tiled roof reveals more of its length, you freeze, eyes widening at what you see. The guard hasn’t moved! You quickly crouch by the wall to hide your profile but the moonlight casts scant shadows on this part of the roof. If he turns, he’ll see you. You back away quietly until the roof hides him once more.

Curse your luck. Several times you watched him walk his course around the roof and in all those times he completed it without pause or incident. Now you climb up and he suddenly has reason to stop? Typical. You edge forwards slightly to keep an eye on him. He still stands there. If he turns around and looks down this side of the roof then there will be nowhere you can hide. For now he simply stands with his back to you, looking out over the short roof wall and into the distance. The view will be of the path leading up to the mansion and perhaps some of the village, and beyond that it’s mostly the top of trees with a sliver of sea in the distance. Perhaps he’s seen someone coming? No, you don’t think he’s focusing on anything in particular. His vigil seems more idle than that; the common stance of a man thinking of nothing.

He's dressed strangely. His top is like an unfinished jacket; it has long tight sleeves, which are connected across the back by fabric wide enough to hold a crudely painted red skull, yet from what you can see, the front and bottom seems to be missing. Indeed, his chest and lower back are completely exposed, hard and sometimes scarred skin revealed for all of no one to see. His trousers are wide, having too much material around the thighs, yet they end and tie closed at the knees, making them looks like a pair of absurdly puffy bloomers.

You assess your options.

You can’t sneak past; the walkway is too narrow for that and you do not trust that roof with its own weight, let alone yours. You could go back; down and around the other side and hopefully find the way into the house before he resumes his walk. That would be risky. If he started walking his normal way again then there would be nowhere to hide, same as if he looked down your current side. On the other hand, you still don’t know where the way into the house is, but you know it’s not on this side.

Killing him would be another way. The floor may make some noise but you could probably get fairly close before it alerts him. The real risk is if you can kill him quietly. You can’t just push him over and have him scream all the way down. Perhaps attacking is too greater risk, but if done successfully then you can search the roof at your leisure. What’s more, you’ll be assured that the house has one less guard to send your way.

The final option would be the one you’re currently taking; waiting. He’ll doubtlessly start moving again at some point, hopefully in the same direction as before. If you can wait long enough then you can follow behind him. As you watch, he leans down and puts his hands on the wall, continuing to stare at whatever it is that’s caught his gaze.