Estrada's eyes flicked open. "We've an hour's light left," she said, sounding slightly groggy.
"That's nothing to do with it. Saltlick, pull in to the bank."
Estrada, wide-awake now, told him, "Keep going. Leave him alone, Damasco."
"We're getting close to Altapasaeda."
"So?"
"So, there may not be many places where I'm welcome in the Castoval, but there's only one where they'll chop my head off before they even bother to arrest me. The farther I stay from Altapasaeda and their crazy ideas about law enforcement, the less likely they are to find an opportunity."
Estrada looked at me with puzzlement. Then, as though talking to an addled child, she said, "Damasco, where did you think we'd been going to all this time?"
In retrospect, standing up in the boat wasn't the best idea I'd ever had. Alarm at Estrada's revelation seemed like less and less of a good excuse as the night wore on. While it had achieved what I'd wanted, that hadn't proved to be much comfort — not as I tumbled into the river, not while I flailed to keep my head above the surface, not even as I floundered to the bank and lay choking greenish water into the mud.
Nor had it carried much weight with Estrada and Saltlick. Estrada proved a strong swimmer after her initial panic, and Saltlick was able to gain a footing on the riverbed; the sight of his upturned face bobbing shoreward would have been humorous under better circumstances. He'd even managed to salvage our boat, dragging it behind him with one hand.
Once they'd landed, it had provided them a seat from which to ignore me.
Since no real harm had been done, such vindictiveness struck me as uncalled-for. Estrada only broke the wall of silence when — sick of shivering on a fallen tree trunk in my sodden cloak — I decided to build a fire.
"Are you insane?"
I glared at her. "What was that? I couldn't hear for the sound of my teeth chattering. If it was 'Are you cold, drenched and pissed off?' then the answer is yes."
"You know we can't light a fire."
"I know that the troops at Casta Canto were a scout party, and we must be far ahead of them by now. I know we've likely gained the same lead on all of Moaradrid's forces. So I suggest that, when the alternative is freezing to death, we should make the most of it."
"You talk as though none of this is your fault."
"And you talk as if this didn't happen because you've been leading me into the hands of people who want to kill me."
Estrada sighed, ran a hand through mud-clotted hair. "Fine, do what you like. It was stupid of me to think you'd listen to anyone but yourself."
"Whenever I do," I called at her retreating back, "it seems to end badly."
I turned irritably back to my would-be fire. It had been hard to find dry wood, or indeed dry anything, and it was a long time before my carefully constructed heap of grass and sticks produced much besides smoke. I nearly whooped with joy when the first amber tongue licked out from a fissure between two twigs. Conscious of Estrada's eyes on me, I tried to pretend it was exactly what I'd been expecting. After that, it was easy work to pile logs and branches onto the hungry blaze, until it danced waist-high in the twilight.
I'd been wondering if Estrada's stubbornness would win out over her misery. I was pleased when she and Saltlick came to join me, Saltlick still hauling the upturned boat behind him, trailing its broken mast like a tail.
"Are you sure you want to sit here?" I asked, chewing a piece of soggy bread I'd discovered in one of my pockets. "I'm expecting Moaradrid's entire army to arrive at any minute."
"Yes, Damasco. I'd like to share your fire, if that's all right."
"Of course it is, Mayor Estrada."
"And perhaps," Estrada added, with a glance towards Saltlick, "we can save any other matters for a later date."
What she meant was, " Let's not argue in front of the giant."
Her tone conjured a memory, of my father speaking to my mother when she returned from one of her nights of drunken frivolity. A little, timid man, he would listen to her rant about some inconsequential thing, and then say softly, "Perhaps we can discuss this later, my darling?"
Close on its heels came another vision: Estrada and myself, wearing the joyous expression of proud parents, stood over a gigantic crib in which sat a dribbling, hiccupping Saltlick.
I shuddered.
Still, I'd no desire for any more forced reconciliations; my throat was still smarting from the last one. I managed a smile, and said, "Of course."
Anyway, I had more immediate concerns. The wet bread had only enraged my appetite, and all the rest of my edible supplies had ended up in the river. It didn't make me feel any better to watch Saltlick contentedly tucking into bunches of leaves he'd stripped from a nearby bush.
"Do you have anything we can eat?" I asked Estrada.
"I left my rucksack on the harbour in Casta Canto," she replied, a little guiltily.
"Then I'm going to see what I can find."
Two miserable hours had passed before I returned. The fruit of my labours was a handful of gnarled apples and a rabbit so ancient it would probably have expired that night even if I hadn't clubbed it over the head with a rock. My fire had tormented me all the while as a glimmer of beckoning orange through the trees, and I was depressed to find that Estrada had let it burn down to a heap of flickering embers. I added branches to the neglected blaze, then sat down next to her and set about gutting the geriatric rabbit. Estrada eyed the work with distaste, but said nothing.
I was drooling with hunger by the time I'd rigged a makeshift spit and begun to roast my prize. Yet once it was done and the meat divided, our portions were so meagre that you'd have thought I'd cooked a shrew. With vigorous chewing, it was edible at least, and followed by the apples it dealt with the worst of my stomach cramps. Since Saltlick lay beside the boat heaving out loud snores, I decided the time was right to tell Estrada what I thought of her plot to get me executed.
Perhaps she caught the glint in my eye. "I know what you think about going to Altapasaeda. You made that quite clear when you capsized our boat."
"That was an accident. Not that I wouldn't have done it deliberately if it meant keeping my head on my shoulders."
"I also know how stringently they pursue the law there. Nevertheless, it's crucial that we go to Altapasaeda, and terrible things will happen if we don't. So before we begin arguing again, won't you listen to why? I'll tell you the truth — the whole of it."
Her tone was almost beseeching. This wasn't what I'd expected. "I'll listen, but nothing you say is going to make me value my head any less."
Estrada nodded, gazed thoughtfully into the fire, and said, "I'm not sure where to begin. Anyone else would have worked out most of it already. You've a knack for ignoring the big questions."
"That's untrue. I'm the first to ask what's for dinner, or where the nearest inn is. Perhaps we just disagree about what the big questions are."
"You haven't wondered how Moaradrid recruited the giants, or why?"
I remembered what I'd overheard him say, that night in his encampment. "The 'why' is obvious. Once he's subdued the Castoval, he plans to march north again, against the King. It takes more than a bunch of unwashed plainsmen to pull off something like that."
Estrada looked impressed. "You have been paying some attention. But you didn't ask why the giants would follow him when they hate fighting so much? It's not as though they can't stand up for themselves."
"I wondered. Then I got diverted by fleeing for my life."
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "And the stone? You didn't ask yourself what the stone is for?"
Did she mean the jewel I'd left in Reb Panza? No, she could only be talking about that red-striped pebble, which I'd found in Moaradrid's pouch and thought no more about. They'd taken it from me when I was imprisoned in the caves, and I'd hardly noticed the loss. Now that I thought back, though, hadn't Moaradrid referred to a stone as well?