grubby, unkempt craft, its name invisible beneath anonymous filth that had dripped from above, its cargo hidden beneath sheets of soiled oilcloth. It had a single, tattered sail, currently furled. Two boys lounged on deck and a shovelbearded man in a long crimson coat — that must have been expensive before decades of disrepair took their toll — leaned over the side towards us.
Estrada, noticing me, said, 'Damasco, meet Captain Anterio. I happened to see him passing and thought he might be able to help us. Captain, this is my travelling companion Easie Damasco.'
'A pleasure,' I said, without conviction.
'The captain was just agreeing to take us up the river.'
'Depending on our settling a reasonable fare,' Anterio added quickly. Then his eyes widened, and he took a step backward. 'What in the hells is that?'
I followed his distraught gaze to see Saltlick ploughing through the trees towards us.
'Ah,' said Estrada. 'I was about to mention Saltlick.'
I never heard the final sum Estrada paid for our passage. I've no doubt it went up considerably when Saltlick entered the equation. Though Anterio eventually agreed to let him on board, he insisted on making him sit at the stern, with his back to us. It seemed a bizarre precaution, but Saltlick didn't appear to mind, and soon we were underway.
Captain Anterio's riverboat stank worse than it looked. Unprompted, he explained irritably that he was carrying a cargo of turnips into the city.
'Why do they smell so bad?' I asked, my voice muffled from trying to speak with my hand around my nose.
'Because they're rotten,' he replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
However malodorous and ramshackle our vessel was, it cut swiftly through the water, propelled by a sharp southerly breeze. I silently cursed both wind and boat. I needed time to think of an escape plan, and it was rapidly running out. We were soon beginning to see signs of civilization, occasional farms and drifts of smoke marking hamlets further inland. What little say I had in my future would be gone if I didn't act soon.
Estrada sat in the prow with Anterio for a long while. I guessed from what snatches I overheard that she was catching up on local news, perhaps even fishing for rumours of Moaradrid or the resistance. It was at least an hour before she stood and walked back to sit with Saltlick. We were passing tracts of pasture, by then, and fields of grain dotted with large farmhouses and barns. I knew we were drawing near to Altapasaeda.
I waited a couple of minutes, then sidled over to Anterio and sat beside him. I tried to judge his age and failed. His face was lined and tanned a ruddy amber-brown, and he could have been anywhere from forty to sixty. I did recognise his jacket, though, as a dress-coat of the Altapasaedan City Guard, and wondered what had led him to be wearing it upon this dingy barge.
He didn't notice me at first. He was concentrating on trimming his beard with a small pair of scissors. It was an occupation he clearly took seriously, though he was dreadful at it. Up close, the wedge of wiry black hair was lopsided and uneven. When he finally looked round, I said softly, 'Captain, I have a proposition.'
Anterio dropped the scissors into a leather pouch, which he secreted within the folds of his coat. 'A good captain is always open to propositions. Some days it's only propositions that pay the bills.'
'That's exactly right. In this case,' I said, holding out a hand containing five of my remaining onyxes, 'it could be very profitable for both of us.'
He squinted. 'I hope you don't intend any harm to that young lady back there?'
'None whatsoever.'
'It might be better for everyone if you drowned the monster,' he added vehemently.
'No need for anyone to be drowned. All I ask is this: you drop my companions at Altapasaeda as planned, and then continue upriver until we can find another boat for me, one that's headed away from the city. That's it. Five onyxes for an hour's work.'
'That's all?'
'That's all.'
Captain Anterio offered me a greasy palm. 'Then I accept your proposition.'
The rotten vegetable smell had an insidious quality that made it impossible to ignore. I decided, after wrestling with it for a while, to try to live with it instead. I sprawled out on the narrow portion of the deck that was free of mouldy produce and considered a nap.
After our brief conversation, Captain Anterio had devoted his attentions to a series of small jobs about the boat, joined by the two boys, who bore just enough similarity to him that they might conceivably be his sons. Estrada and Saltlick still sat together, speaking in short exchanges. I couldn't guess what it was they found to talk about.
I watched the banks slide by and wondered if my plan could work. Anterio was certainly a man in need of a few extra coins, and it wasn't as though a little additional travel would spoil his cargo. If I could find a boat heading north, I might make it as far as Aspira Nero. Even if Moaradrid came looking for me he'd be hard pressed to catch up. Moreover, since Estrada would have to reveal her possession of the stone or watch her plans go up in smoke, it was unlikely to come to that.
Overall, things looked more promising than they had in days. I found myself almost looking forward to reaching Altapasaeda. The sooner I got there, the sooner I could leave. That nervous excitement and the flavourful stench kept sleep at bay, and I settled for staring into the distance, willing the city to materialise from the haze.
I saw the bridge first. It was the longest and grandest in the Castoval, its arches tall enough for even high- masted boats to pass beneath. They called it the Sabre — for its shape, presumably, and the way it sliced the Casto Mara in two. At that distance, it was a skeletal black outline above the water, and the walls before it just a smudge.
The ground was low and flat. It was possible to see the vast tracts of forest behind us, and even the mountains, a purple border on the edge of vision. We were still travelling through farmland, but the plantations were richer, dedicated to luxury goods for rich city folk. There were vineyards and apiaries, olive trees, and estates devoted solely to supplying the Temple District: with flowers, incense, birds, cloth and statuary. It was a riot of colour, and of heady scents that reached us even in the middle of the river. The road on the west bank was packed with traffic, and we passed more boats than we had the day before.
Soon we were overtaking the suburbs of Altapasaeda — a polite name for the high-class slum that lay like a second shadow beyond the northward walls. I couldn't help looking for signs of Moaradrid's army, but it was impossible to say from a distance whether there were more tents in the chaos of the outskirts than on any other day.
I turned my attention to the city itself. Altapasaeda was unique in the Castoval, an intrusion of northern civilization into our simpler and infinitely calmer existence. Compared with the Castovalian towns, it was like a glamorous but ageing whore: grand and startling, but most of its glamour purely for show and even more simply painted on. High towers jutted above the walls for no purpose but to jut, and hardly a building went unmarked by some architectural eccentricity. It was hard not to be impressed by Altapasaeda, harder still to take it seriously.
It was only when we dipped beneath the rightmost arch of the Sabre that the docks came into view. I squinted against the sudden darkness. There were only shapes at first, sharp rectangles and triangles glistening in the sun beyond the bridge. As we broke back into the light, leaving the dripping grey ceiling behind, the scene gained depth and perspective. The docks of Altapasaeda were a far cry from the sagging jetties of Casta Canto. Here everything was built of stone in two tiers joined by wide steps and ramps. There were metal bollards to tie off against, and even a pair of mechanically assisted cranes to unload the largest vessels.
It was so busy, both in the water and upon the dockside, that we wasted ten minutes manoeuvring for a spot. All the while, the captain and his two boys shouted incomprehensibly to neighbouring crews, the harbour hands and each other. I grew impatient, and a little nervous. There were a handful of guards strutting around. Any one of them might recognise me. Was all this fuss really necessary for so brief a stop?
Our dilapidated craft sidled into a gap between two similarly run-down scows, with difficulty and yet more yelling. I watched Anterio as he hurled a guide rope to a lad running back and forth on the quay and, once we were
