After a moment’s consideration, she decided a translation might still carry the meaning: “Now, if you have nothing to do but hang from a branch, you might as well go back to your nest and make spit bubbles.” It didn’t quite carry the same weight as the original, which likened an unwanted commentator to one of the ghants, horrid, murderous creatures that infested the back ways of the marshy Wran, but conveyed her general meaning.
“Disrespectful beast,” said Oren. “Talk sense.” But he seemed to lose interest in scolding her further and wandered off, presumably to bark at the grooms or the coachman about something.
Jesa finished little Serasina’s swaddling, testing it with her finger to make sure the blanket was not wrapped either too loosely or too tightly. The baby made a pop-eyed face and let out a minuscule belch. Jesa laughed and picked her up, then carried her as carefully out to the stairs and down to the front doors as if she were her own baby.
The coach, a great rectangular chamber on wheels, was waiting for them on the cobbled forecourt. Jesa made a curtsy, then handed little Serasina up to her mother before climbing the steps.
“Will she be warm enough?” the duchess asked, frowning in concern.
If anyone found Nabban chilly, it was Jesa, child of the humid swamps, but the day was lovely, a near-perfect Avril morning with only a small hint of a breeze and the morning fog long since scoured from the hills on which the Domos Benidriyan perched. “It is a good day, Your Grace. I believe she is warm enough.”
“Are you sure? Oh, I worry so. Just sennight last I heard a terrible story of fever in Purta Falessis.”
“She is very strong, your little one. Look, see her look around! She is not cold and sick. She likes the air!”
“I hope so.” The duchess squeezed her daughter tightly for a moment, then handed her back to Jesa. “But you are right—it’s a lovely day to be out.” She knocked on the carriage roof. As the driver snapped the reins and the team of horses began to pull, Canthia nodded and smiled at the servants lined up to see them off, more than two dozen of the household staff all together, maids and grooms and valets.
As the carriage rolled across the grounds and through the palace gates, all the hills of Nabban were laid out before them. The Domos Benidriyan stood above the vineyards and other palaces of one of the great hills, the Antigine, and had a fine view of the other two tallest crests, the Redenturine, home of the Sancellan Aedonitis, the heart of Mother Church, and the steep Mahistrevine that rose above the harbor with the ducal palace at its peak, like a figurehead on the bow of a ship.
Because of her humble beginnings in the Wran, Jesa had never got used to the idea of riding in the ducal carriage—there were only four or five such carriages in all Nabban (one belonged to the Lector himself!) and fewer than a dozen in all the known world, her mistress had once told her. It was also a painful ride. Even on smooth dirt the carriage jounced, and on cobblestones, at speed, she felt like she was sitting on a branch in a high wind, struggling to hold on while it whipped up and down. But just now the driver was in no hurry and the horses were all pulling strongly and evenly. Little Serasina had been fed by the wet nurse before being changed, and had already dropped into the sleep of innocence.
As they made their way down the steeply winding road, people came out to look and sometimes to wave or cheer, and the duchess looked out on her subjects with a fixed smile. As some children leaped up and down, shouting in excitement, Canthia smiled more broadly and waved back, but except for that brief moment, the duchess seemed almost sad.
“Is everything right, Your Grace?”
The duchess nodded. “All is well, Jesa. I just cannot help worrying about my husband. He should have come here to the hill with Serasina and me, but I could not convince him. He works so hard! I fear he will make himself ill.”
“He is strong, your husband,” said Jesa.
“In some ways.” Duchess Canthia smiled. “But in some ways, he is like all men—strong without bending. And things that do not bend . . . well, sometimes they break.”
Jesa did not understand this. From everything she understood, many of the people in Nabban who were angry with the Duke thought he was too forgiving, that he was allowing his brother and the Albatross people—what were their names?—too much freedom to complain and make trouble. Ingadarine House, she remembered then: the Albatross was House Ingadaris, just as the Kingfisher was House Benidrivis. The rival families of Nabban were harder to keep track of than even the village squabbles she had grown up with and their complicated old stories about which fishing spot belonged to which family. Having money and carriages and stone houses did not seem to keep drylanders from fighting with each other just as much as marsh-folk.
After a while, as the carriage descended from the hill into the close-cramped neighborhoods of the poor, fewer people gathered to cheer the ducal carriage, although many still stood to watch them pass. Looking at the faces, Jesa could not help feeling a shiver of worry at the scowls many of them wore. But when the road swung out and followed the course of the Great Canal, she began to have an idea why so many of them looked angry. A great swath of buildings along the canal had been burned; some of them still leaked plumes of smoke into the gray sky. At the turn of a bend, she could see that a broad cloud of smoke hung over the near side of the city as well, just inside the walls. Now she remembered a messenger telling her mistress the previous night that there had been a riot in the warehouse district. But surely that had happened two or three days ago, or so the messenger had said—why were some of the buildings still burning?
It was well into the afternoon by the time they reached the city walls. The chief gatewarden came out in full regalia to speak to them when the carriage stopped in front of the huge iron and timber North Gate. He stood on the carriage steps, and had to take off his broad hat to get his head in at the window on the door.
“Why are the gates closed, Warden?” asked Canthia. “It is the middle of the day!”
“Your Grace, there is trouble in Tellis Narassi.” That was a poor neighborhood on the other side of the gates, Jesa knew, inhabited primarily by immigrants from the southern islands. She also knew that it was close to the Patorine Hill where Dallo Ingadaris kept his townhouse. She wondered if Duke Saluceris’ rival had something to do with the disturbance.
Jesa might wonder, but Duchess Canthia had no doubts. “A curse on Count Dallo,” she said. “He should have cleared this rabble from the streets himself. Is there a better way around?”
“Your Grace can have her driver continue around to the Port Gate,” the chief warder said. “If you go that way, you can come up Harbor Way to the Mahistrevine Road.”
“That will take hours more,” the duchess said. “I have a hungry child in my carriage.” She looked over at Jesa as if contemplating the strength of her own forces.
“Please, Mistress,” Jesa said quietly. “Let us do what this good man says. Let us go around.”
“No one will harm the Duke’s child,” Canthia declared. “And no one will harm the Duchess. This is Nabban, not some backwater. There is a sacred law of safe passage inside the city.”
Jesa knew nothing about such a law, but she did know that people were not supposed to set roofs on fire either, and yet a cloud of black smoke hung just a short distance away over the city wall. Once people broke one rule, they did not usually wait long before breaking another. “No, Mistress, I beg you! Think of your child!”
“It is my child I am thinking of,” said the duchess. “I will not let my husband’s brother and his bullies forbid the duke’s family the use of our own streets!” She turned to the gatewarden. “Open them up, Captain. We will drive through.”
The warden’s reluctance showed in his face, but he waved to the guards in the gatehouse and they turned the great windlass. The gates slowly swung open, and the driver urged the horses through, with the warden still standing on the carriage step.
“Merchants Road is blocked just up ahead, Your Grace,” the warden said. “You cannot go that way. If you insist, you must go by Sailmakers Road, but even so I cannot let you go with no more than a driver and two guards. I will give you eight of my riders to clear your way.”
“Do you not need them to protect the gate?” asked the duchess.
He gave her a look of helplessness. “Please, Your Grace. It is a bad day for you to be abroad in the city. Let me help as I can.”
“Very well. We will go up Sailmakers Road.” She looked down at her baby, still cradled in Jesa’s arms. “I thank you for your thoughtfulness, Warden.”
“It is my duty, Your Grace. I wish I could do more. But I wish even more that you would reconsider.” He darted a look at Jesa, so worried that he was willing to seek an ally even in a Wrannawoman nursemaid. “I wish in truth you would turn your carriage around and return to your house in the hills.”