A few of these canal-side folk called out greetings as Anya rowed past. She didn’t answer, afraid her voice would give her away, but waved with one hand. None called out in alarm or shouted about the strange occupants of the boat, but each time Anya tensed expecting trouble to begin.
No one noticed the two otters, either—and if they did, they kept it to themselves. Though the otters rarely came into the canals in the current times, people still told stories about the huge Yarrow River otters and how they had once kept the peace on the river with tooth and claw, and by extension, kept the peace everywhere the river flowed, including the city canals. If the giant otters were about, sensible people left them to their business.
Anya was particularly tense as they passed under the next bridge. It was roofed and had high sides, but it would still be possible for someone to hang over and look down straight at them, seeing Shrub. Presuming that the inhabitants of New Yarrow didn’t see huge orange newts every day, this would probably lead to a commotion, would attract guards and perhaps Gerald the Heralds and then certainly raven spies and the like from the sorcerers of the League.
This made Anya belatedly wonder who those sorcerers actually were, and how many were located in New Yarrow. She knew about the Duke, of course, and had heard about the Grey Mist, but that was all.
“Hey, Shrub,” she whispered after they were past the bridge. “How many sorcerers belong to the League anyway? And how many might be in the meetinghouse?”
“I dunno,” said Shrub, answering with possibly his most frequent response. “Most of ’em only come in for meetings, they have ’em at the same time as the city festivals … ”
Anya looked back at all the lanterns strung across the canal, and in the windows and doorways of every building.
“Like now?” she asked softly.
“Maybe,” said Shrub. “I mean, the city has a lot of festivals. Stands to reason the League wouldn’t have a meeting every time.”
“And how many sorcerers have you heard about?”
“Let’s see. There’s the Grey Mist; she’s kind of like the caretaker. She’s always in the meetinghouse—that’s why she was the one who transformed me, Then there’s your Duke Rikard—”
“He’s not my Duke Rikard,” interrupted Anya.
Shrub swiveled one eyeball to look at her, then continued.
“Ahuren the Nightgaunt, he comes from the mountains. Grandmother Ghoul, oh, she’s a horror. I seen her once. They say she lives in the old necropolis outside the city and she looks like they dug her up from there. Yngish, Lord of the Waves, he rules the pirates that live on the Crooked Isle in the river mouth. That’s, let me see, five. I think there might be six altogether, though.”
“Let’s hope they’re not all there right now,” said Anya. “If they are, we have to avoid them. Like I said, sneak in, steal the ingredients, and sneak out.”
Everyone nodded. Anya did too, very firmly. She hoped she looked more confident than she felt. The whole being-in-charge-of-a-questing-party thing was very stressful and she was really looking forward to the time when she could just curl up with her books again in the library. Different books, though. Not ones about learning sorcery.
They continued along the canal, Anya rowing slowly and carefully. She was rather disgusted by the amount of rubbish in the water. Almost every time her oars lifted, they came up with bits of rotten stuff that had just been thrown in and was so decomposed it was hard to recognize, except when a putrescent pumpkin floated past, or what was left of some large fish or perhaps a dolphin, one pallid eye bobbing just above the surface. Once, an oar got stuck and lifted up part of something she was afraid was a dead body.
“What’s wrong with this city!” she hissed after disturbing a particular noxious mat of rotten vegetable peelings that was almost as big as their boat.
“Like I said,” said Shrub, “no one’s really in charge. Mayor and council are afraid to do anything in case the sorcerers don’t like it. So they don’t do anything.”
“Someone should do something,” Anya growled.
She rowed on in silence for a while after that, thinking. It was easy to say “someone should do something” but rather more difficult to put it into practice.
“Big group of people up ahead,” warned Smoothie. “Small ones.”
“A group of small people?” Anya looked over her shoulder. “Oh, children! Young ones. What are they doing there?”
There were half a dozen children sitting on one of the regular small landing stages that adjoined almost every canal-facing door on every building. As Anya rowed closer, one of them stood up and held out her cupped hands.
“Food, kind people. Food for the orphans?”
Anya hesitated, shipped her oars, and let the boat coast alongside the small landing till she was level with the begging child. It was a girl, aged perhaps six or seven, wearing a short robe that had once been a flour sack and still bore fading red stenciled letters that spelled out Weshlig Mill. The other children were no better clothed, and they all looked very undersized and scrawny.
None got up as the boat stopped, their lack of curiosity and general air of exhaustion a stark contrast from the village children Anya was used to seeing.
“Food, kind people,” said the flour-sack girl again, but not as if she expected to get any.
“Here,” said Anya, handing up the remnants of their bread and meat. This did attract a response, with the children moving closer and shuffling about, till they were beaten back by the flour-sack girl.
“Wait your turns,” she snapped. “I’ll see it divided fair.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Anya. “Are you all really orphans?”
“Good as,” said the girl, intently dividing the bread into tiny but equal-size portions on her lap. “Might be some who have parents somewhere, but none that are any use.”
“And you stay here at night?”
“Old Jerbie, she lets us stay here,” said the girl, slicing the beef now with a very blunt knife. “We work for her during the day, picking up stuff that might be useful. In the canals, and along Kneebone Street. It ain’t much of a living but it’s better than dying, as my old sister used to say.”