The lower slopes were cultivated, with ripening crops. A few sheds and barns were the only buildings outside the walls. Otherwise the fields ran right up to the edge of the moat. The sun was already low before they reached it. Though they were going to need to hurry to buy what they wanted and make it back out of the city before the gate closed, Ribek halted on the bridge and leaned on the rail to listen to what the waters had to say. He had done this so regularly on their journey that Maja had learned, though not to hear and understand their speech the way he could, at least to sense the tone and seriousness of what they were saying. It was like hearing somebody call from another room. Though one can’t make out the individual words, one can hear the emotion that underlies them, anger or amusement or whatever. The moat was only a branch of the main current, but it seemed to be a deeply serious river. Maja leaned on the rail and waited. She was aware of the Eye on the gate. It had registered their presence but not reacted to them.
“They’re still fighting round Tarshu, but it looks like they’re at a stalemate,” said Ribek.
“How does it know? This water can’t ever have been near Tarshu.”
“Clouds have come in over Tarshu and picked up what’s happening, in a vague, cloudy kind of way. They condense into rain over the mountains. You won’t get much sense out of an individual raindrop, but put a lot of them together into a stream and they begin to gather and shape themselves into patterns which they can put into words. It’s mostly just chatter and gossip, like in my millstream, but as the streams join up and become rivers they make more and more sense of the world, until they reach the sea. Coming from the Valley, we don’t hear much about the sea, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a sort of deep, general wisdom in it, too large for our small brains to…What’s up?”
Maja gripped the rail, gasping and trembling. Two or three women were crossing the bridge behind her, laughing over some scandal. Their tone hadn’t changed, their step hadn’t faltered. No new ripple crossed the easy flow of the stream, though if it had felt what Maja had felt the foam would have been sluicing to the battlements of the walls. Something had struck the surrounding barrier a violent blow, close to where Saranja, Benayu and the horses were waiting. Her heart stopped. No, it can’t have been aimed at them. It had come from somewhere far to the south, a single, colossal convulsion, as if a root of the Tree of the World had been wrenched away.
“Tarshu,” she muttered through her daze. “The Watchers have done something new. Huge. Bigger than that tempest.”
Ribek was watching her, concerned. He looked up over her shoulder.
“Stalemate over?” he said. “Watchers will…Hold it—this may be trouble.”
She turned. Three men had emerged from a doorway under the arch of the gate and were coming toward them. They wore red hats like inverted flower-pots, and dark blue belted surcoats. Their leader carried a knobbed cane under his arm. Something else…
“The Eye’s started watching us,” she whispered. “It knew we were there, before, but it didn’t pay any attention.”
The men marched, rather than walked, straight up to Ribek. He faced them, apparently relaxed and untroubled.
“What do you think you’re doing, then?” said the leader.
“Resting, looking at the water. I like rivers and streams.”
“More than looking. Doing something to it.”
“Not unless you count listening. The river was doing something, mind you, but rivers do. They talk, only most people can’t hear what they say. I can. Fact, I can’t help it—it’s something I was born with. Runs in the family. I’m not a magician if that’s what you’re after. Nothing like that where I come from. We’ve picked up a few trinkets since we’ve been in the Empire, and we’re on our way to hire a pass-box so we can take them through the city.”
“All that’s as may be, friend,” said the man. “Not up to me.”
His voice became solemn and official.
“By virtue of my office as Gate Sergeant,” he said, “I am taking you before the Court of Provosts under Standing Order Number Three-a.”
“If you must,” said Ribek with a sigh. “You’d better go back and tell the others, Maja. I’ll join you when I can. With the pass-box, I hope.”
“Kid’s coming too,” said the guard, back in his normal voice. “Maybe she’ll tell a bit more about you than you want to tell yourself. Come along then.”
The two other men moved to take Ribek by the arms. He actually laughed, as if this were just the sort of ridiculous minor nuisance travelers have to get used to. Maja guessed he was weighing up whether he could take all three guards on with his kick-fighting. They were large men, but they didn’t look particularly tough. Two perhaps, but not three, she thought. She hoped he wasn’t going to try it. Anyway, even if he got away with it, it wouldn’t help much in getting them all through the city.
He made one more attempt.
“How much to let my sister go back to the rest of our party?”
It was the Gate Sergeant’s turn to laugh.
“More than you could pay, my friend,” he said, gripping Maja by the shoulder. “Come along, then.”
The street beyond the gate was cheerfully busy, with the working day beginning to ease toward the pleasures of the evening. Still half dazed from the shock that had struck her on the bridge, Maja barely noticed the way people stopped what they were doing to stare questioningly at them as they were led past, as if this was something they weren’t used to seeing.
They reached a large cobbled square, with a fountain in the middle and statues dotted here and there. Part of it was used as a market, its stalls still busy. Three sides were occupied by tall but narrow buildings that seemed to have been built in competition with each other over which could carry the most elaborate ornamentation crammed into its restricted façade. Along the fourth side ran the river, as wide as two market squares and busy with boats and barges.
The building at the center of the side opposite the river was taller and wider than the others, and even more richly curlicued. They climbed the steps. The double doors stood open, but the Gate Sergeant rapped his knob loudly on the right-hand leaf as he went through. The large entrance hall was fully as ornate as the façade, and lavishly gilded. Everything about it spoke of the self-contented wealth accumulated through long, untroubled years. Officials and citizens bustled across it. A functionary moved to confront them, his uniform magnificently swagged and braided. He carried a gold-knobbed staff of office. The Gate Sergeant drew himself up, matching him in self-importance.
“One for the Provosts’ Court,” he said. “Standing Order Number Three-a.”
The functionary’s eyebrows rose.
“Three-a?” he said.
The Gate Sergeant relaxed, clearly having won the contest. He let go of Maja’s shoulder, drew a small leather-bound book from his breast pocket, found a page, and pointed, forcing the functionary to move round and crane to read, reciting the words as he did so.
“‘Apparent magical practices on bridge relating to movement of moat-water. Perpetrator or perpetrators to be taken before the Provosts’ Court. If not sitting, court to be immediately summoned.’ Twelve years, morning after morning, I’ve been reading out Orders soon as I come on duty. Given up wondering what that one’s about. Never been invoked before, far as I know.”
The speech had given the functionary time to recover his self-esteem. He swung away, marched to a side apse, raised his staff and struck it against the bell that hung from the archway. The bell clanged and the bustle in the hall fell to a hush so deep that Maja could hear the last whimper of the vibrations as they died away.