The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [137]
A few moments later she was on a canal barge with her men and their mounts, moving across the water toward Eslen. She felt in her bones as if it were a place she had never been.
When they reached the docks, they mounted and that impression grew.
The castle of Eslen was built upon a high hill, protected by three concentric walls. The Fastness, its outmost wall, was the most impressive, twelve kingsyards high and watched by eight towers. Outside of it, on the broad lower ground between the first gate and the docks, a town had grown up over the years: Docktown, a collection of inns, brothels, warehouses, alehouses—everything a wandering seafarer might want, whether he arrived when the city gates were open or closed. It was usually a bustling, rowdy place, considered dangerous enough that the few times Anne had seen it had been when she had sneaked out of the castle incognito and against her parents’ wishes.
Today it was quiet, and the only seafarers she saw were those wearing the royal insignia. There weren’t many, though; most were on the fleet her boat had passed through on their way in.
Through open doorways and windows, Anne caught glimpses of men, women, and children—the people who actually lived there—and wondered what would happen to them if and when the fighting started. She remembered the little villages around the castles her army had reduced. They had not fared well.
After some explaining by Sir Clement and the presentation of a letter in Robert’s hand, the gates were opened, and they proceeded in to Eslen itself.
The city was a bit livelier than Docktown. Anne imagined it had to be. Even if war threatened, bread still had to be baked and bought, clothes had to be washed, beer brewed. Despite the bustle, though, her party drew a lot of curious stares.
“They don’t know me,” Anne noticed. “Do I look so different?”
Cazio chuckled at that.
“What?” she asked.
“Why should they know you?” the Vitellian asked.
“Even if they don’t know me as their queen, I have been their princess for seventeen years. Everyone knows me.”
“No,” Austra corrected. “Everyone in the castle knows you. The nobility, the knights, the servants. Most of those would recognize you. But how would the people in the street identify you unless you actually wore a symbol of office?”
Anne blinked. “That’s incredible,” she said.
“Not really,” Cazio replied. “How many of them have had the opportunity to meet you face to face?”
“I mean it’s incredible that I never thought of that.” Anne turned to Austra. “When we used to come into the city, I always wore disguises. Why didn’t you say anything then?”
“I didn’t want to spoil your fun,” Austra admitted. “Anyway, there are people who would have known you, and some of them might have been the wrong people.”
Watching her companions grin, Anne felt unaccountably conspired against, as if Austra and Cazio had somehow planned for this bit of stupidity on her part. She quashed the irritation, however.
The winding way steepened before they reached the second gate. The city of Eslen was laid out somewhat like a spider’s web draped over an anthill, with the avenues paralleling the broad circles of the ancient walls and streets running down the hills like streams. The largest thoroughfares, however, the ones used by armies and merchants, wound up the hill to prevent them being too steep for wagons and armored horses.
They followed just such a route—the Rixplaf—and so their path carried them through most of the Westhill neighborhoods. Each was distinctive, or so she was told. With some it was obvious; the houses in the old Firoy ward had the steepest roofs in town, all of black slate, so as the road wended above them, it was like looking down on stony waves. The people were pale, with lilting accents. The men wore two-color plaid jerkins, and the women’s skirts rarely had fewer than three bright shades.
The ward of Saint Neth, on the other hand, felt distinctive, but there was nothing Anne could actually point to to explain why. Still, of most of the city’s eighteen wards, Anne had seen only the houses