“That cannot be, Warden.” Duchess Canthia’s tone made the end of the conversation quite clear.
Eight petty-knights with lances formed up in front of the carriage before they started forward again. Following the gatewarden’s suggestion, the driver turned the wide carriage into Sailmakers Road, which ran along the Great Canal in the shadow of the walls. But after they had left that broad thoroughfare they found themselves in a series of narrow back streets where their progress slowed to a walking man’s pace. Once they had to stop and change the hitching of the horses to get around a tight corner, setting the tired beasts in three rows so that they could make their way through the tight space between the looming buildings. None of those who watched in curiosity as this lengthy trick was performed seemed anything other than interested to see Duchess Canthia at such close range, but Jesa did not like the way they crowded up to peer in the windows while the carriage was stopped. She put her back to the nearest window, trying to protect baby Serasina from staring eyes.
They finally reached the wider Harbor Road, which mounted toward the Mahistrevine Hill and the Sancellan from the west. With the sun now at their backs but still high in the sky, Jesa felt her heart beating more easily. Then the vast carriage rattled to a stop again.
“We cannot go further this way, Your Grace,” called the driver.
“Whyever not?” the duchess asked.
One of the petty-knights brought his horse close to the carriage. “There is an ostler’s wagon overturned at the far side of St. Lavennin’s Square, Your Grace. The square is full, and they are breaking open the casks.” He was looking at something neither the duchess or Jesa could see. “Oh, Merciful Elysia,” he said quietly.
“What? What is it?”
“Someone has lit the cart on fire, Your Grace.” He stood in his stirrups and shouted to the driver. “Hurry, man! You must turn this carriage around! We will be trapped here.”
The mounted knights moved in beside the carriage as the driver began to pull the horses around, but already the crowd in the square was pushing in close, most of the people simply curious, a few conspicuously drunk. Jesa moved in toward the middle of her seat as the faces of those who managed to wriggle forward between the mounted guards leered in from both sides.
“I cannot turn it around without unhitching the horses!” the driver called. “But I do not.—”
Duchess Canthia waited for a long moment. Outside, the crush of people was actually making the carriage shake. It was all Jesa could do not to scream in fear, but she did not want to upset baby Serasina, who had just awakened and was goggling her eyes, trying to decide whether to cry or not.
“Driver?” the duchess called. “Driver?”
The crush was so great now that the carriage swayed continuously. Jesa caught a glimpse of a face she had not seen before, a strange-looking, disheveled man with an even stranger smile, who seemed content to stand a short distance back from the carriage peering in at them.
One of the petty-knights appeared at the window. “Your Grace, someone has pulled the driver off the carriage! You are in danger if you remain here. Come with me onto my horse. We will have to cut our way out!”
But before the duchess could reply, the knight suddenly toppled from his saddle and was swallowed up by the sea of people. His horse high-stepped away into the crowd, knocking people down while making a squealing noise that Jesa had never heard an animal make before. Together with the shrieks of those the beast trod upon, the din grew so piercingly loud that Jesa thought she was losing her mind.
“Duchess,” she cried, “we have to run! We must get out and run!” The dark-haired man with the odd grin was back near the carriage window again, staring as though he watched an enjoyable performance, even as others rocked the vehicle from side to side. There was something strange about the man’s face besides the fixed smile, something rough and odd and unusual about his skin. Jesa could also see more than a few red Albatross badges scattered through the crowd, and nary a Kingfisher. “It’s a trap!” she cried. “They’ll murder us!”
“Nonsense,” said Canthia, but her eyes said she did not entirely believe what she was saying. “My husband’s crest is on the carriage! They will never dare to harm their duchess or their duke’s child!”
Now the vehicle swayed even more violently, so that Jesa slid from her seat and into the duchess. It was only luck that little Serasina was not crushed between them.
“Get out, get out!” Jesa shouted, but she could barely hear herself above the shouts from the surrounding crowd. She reached for the door beside the duchess but the press of people outside was too thick and the door would not open. Suddenly the whole carriage tipped sideways. Jesa turned to her own side and saw the man with the odd smile again, but now he was climbing in through the window.
“She is calling me,” the man said. His grin was fixed like a stone carving, and he spoke as calmly as if he continued a conversation he and Jesa had begun earlier. He first worked his shoulders through the carriage window, then his arms. Duchess Canthia had fallen forward as the carriage tipped, and could not get up from where she was wedged between the seat and the floor. The intruder reached toward the baby in Jesa’s arms, and she saw that he had a sharpened wooden stake in one hand. “I am summoned by the Whisperer—I must go to her,” the smiling man said, so offhandedly he might have been talking to himself. “But it is such a long way! So I will bring her a gift—something warm . . .”
Jesa managed to get her foot up and kick the intruder full in the face, but he only fell back a short way, and managed to gouge her leg with his stake, drawing blood, before she could pull it back. He began to climb again until he had forced his entire upper body into the carriage. Jesa gave the baby to Duchess Canthia and did her best to shield the tiny body with her own, kicking and hitting out at the intruder, but this time he blocked the blows with his free arm and continued to clamber in, still grinning.
The last thing I will ever see . . . that terrible face . . . Jesa thought, then suddenly the man’s demented grin contracted in puzzlement; a moment later he was jerked backward out of the carriage. Jesa did not see what happened, but heard a whistling cry that began as rage and ended as nothing. A lacy spray of blood splashed the carriage window frame.
The noise outside abruptly changed. The cacophony of voices grew louder and more shrill, but now Jesa also heard the thunder of shod hooves on cobblestone, then screams and other dreadful noises that, if less human, might have come from a butcher’s yard. The carriage stopped swaying.
Another face appeared in the window. To Jesa’s surprise, the newcomer’s skin was as dark as her own, but he wore shiny armor. He had taken off his helmet, and his broad, handsome face was full of worry.
“Your Grace, do you live?” he asked, trying to sort out who was who in the muddle into which Jesa, the duchess, and the baby had fallen.
“Yes, I live,” the duchess said from beneath Jesa. “And thanks to our beloved Ransomer, the Aedon, my baby also lives. Who are you?”
“Viscount Matreu of Spenit, Your Grace. We have met before, but it was long ago. Thanks be to God that my men and I were riding this way! We have put the rabble to flight. Are you injured?”
“Not as far as I can tell,” Canthia said. “Will you get off me now, Jesa, so I can speak to our rescuer? Thank you.” The duchess worriedly examined little Serasina, but the baby seemed to be no worse than startled by the events. “What do we do now? Can we drive on?”
“I fear your driver is dead, and so are several of your guards,” said Matreu. “And both of the wide roads out of this square are blocked. We will have to take you and your child and your servant onto our horses.”