After almost a week on the backwaters, the Duchess seemed to have had enough of it, or else she was becoming bored only talking to Towsan. The old knight had cleared a sheltered slot between crates and under a tarp for the Duchess’s bedroll, while the others slept in theirs against the outside of the provision boxes. One early morning Claudja emerged from her shelter, carefully stepped over Towsan who was still asleep lengthwise across the entrance, and sat down cross-legged next to Tilda who was already seated likewise on the raft’s back edge. The vessel was too primitive for Tilda to really consider this end of it as a stern.
The morning was crisp as they all were now, but the sky was turning blue where it could be seen through the interlocked branches above. Claudja drew in a long breath.
“Another fair and fine day in the green hell,” she said in Codian. Tilda gave a small smile, and from somewhere came a cooing sort of whistle she had been hearing for days.
“Do you know what kind of bird is making that sound?” she asked.
“That? That is not a bird, it is a thief otter. Chatty little brigands.”
“Thief otter?”
Claudja nodded. “I am surprised you did not see any on the Chengdea docks, the little miscreants are everywhere. They snatch up any food not under lock and key, and use anything else they can drag off to build up their hutches on the riverside. Terrible robbers and burglars. No offense.”
Tilda glanced at the Duchess but Claudja maintained a straight face. She took up a leafless twig that had fallen to the deck and trailed it in the water.
“Matilda,” she said after watching the ripples for a while. “Are you all well?”
Tilda raised an eyebrow at her and Claudja met her gaze with her own eyes soft, looking genuinely concerned.
“I only ask because on the night we met at the inn, you seemed in far better spirit.” Claudja looked back at the trailing twig. “I know you are bound for a place of great danger, on what I assume is an important task. I understand if you wish to be left alone to think on your own concerns. I merely thought I should offer a word, or an ear, if you want either.”
Tilda sighed and shook her head faintly. “No, it is not even that, it is just…I had some bad news from home before leaving Chengdea.”
Tilda was not sure why she said anything, but she had felt very alone for a long time now.
“News from Miilark?”
“Yes.”
“Not…family, I hope.”
“No, nothing like that,” Tilda said, then realized she was unsure if Claudja had meant her actual blood kin, or had just very adroitly asked Tilda about her House.
“Politics,” Tilda said.
Duchess Claudja Perforce of Chengdea blinked, pointedly batting the long lashes of her gray eyes.
“Really? Is politics sometimes troubling? You don’t say.”
Tilda actually laughed a little, and Claudja smiled at her. Both turned back to the water and watched the banks slide by a while longer.
“Is it…” Claudja said carefully. “Is it something you would like to talk about?”
“It is not something that I should.”
“Fair enough.”
Tilda looked at her. “Do you want to talk about why you are going to Camp Town like this?”
Claudja smiled back at her, but shook her head once. “That is not something I can talk about. Not with anyone. Sorry.”
“Fair enough.”
Somewhere ahead on the raft, a wug tongue-snapped what must have been a large bug out of the air, for some of its fellows hooted approval. Claudja gave a little shiver.
“Gods, that is disconcerting. Surely there must be something we can talk about.”
The Duchess turned and looked back toward the crates, around one of which Dugan’s feet in dirty socks were visible sticking out from the blankets of his bedroll. Claudja turned back around to look out over the water.
“Your man…Dugan,” she said slowly. “He is not an altogether unpleasant-looking fellow. I imagine he could be somewhat presentable, cleaned up a bit.”
Tilda snorted, louder than she had meant to.
“I don’t think he does clean up. That is about as good as it gets.”
Claudja looked at Tilda sideways.
“He is a trifle afraid of you, you know.”
Tilda felt her nose twitch. “Well, that would be because I promised to kill him if he ever touched me again.”
Claudja raised both eyebrows.
“It wasn’t like that,” Tilda said. “It was…complicated.”
Claudja waited for more, but when Tilda said nothing else for a while she shrugged and turned back to the water.
“Well. We have another week on this…floating dance floor, and days overland after that. And I did not think it would look right to bring along a book. Should you become bored enough to delve into complexities, Matilda, I imagine I will be somewhere close at hand.”
Tilda thought for a moment, and finally gave a little sigh before she spoke.
“My friends,” she said, “just call me Tilda.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tilda and Claudja spent the next three days chatting, until the passenger manifest of their crude raft more than doubled. There were innumerable ways through the Vod Wilds’ streams and marshes, and only twice did the group even sight another bullywug raft, moving empty back to the east both times. That changed on their eleventh day on the water.
The night before had been stormy and miserable, obliging Gorpal to tie up against a bank as the water rose rapidly and ran hard. The wugs went inland and sheltered among the trees but the four humans huddled shivering on the bank in a closer knot than their disparate social statuses would have permitted under any other circumstances.
The wugs came out of the trees in the clear morning and got back underway. Gorpal directed their progress closely all day, taking advantage of swift-running streams to cut his transit time. Tilda and the others had been unable to sleep as they had all gotten soaked to the bone on the bank, but at least the wugs had let them stow bedding and extra clothes in the water-tight crates that had been emptied of food so far. The humans slept soundly and more-or-less dryly, until shouts woke them up in the afternoon.
Six sodden men were trapped on a marshy islet in the middle of the stream, with no sign of the raft that had gotten them that far, nor of the bullywugs who had been manning it. Gorpal had his wugs pole to a stop on the opposite bank, and listened while a man shouted over to him in Daulic.
Tilda stood next to Claudja, who translated into the Trade Tongue.
“Their raft broke apart in the storm, and their wugs swam off. They say they can pay.”
Looking across at the men, Tilda doubted that. The six fellows were even rougher-looking than their circumstances warranted. Hard, unshaven men who seemed to have only saved swords and a few pieces of armor from their wreck, no packs nor supplies. At length their leader held up a pouch and shook it at Gorpal. It was too far across the stream to hear coins jingling together, but the weight looked right.
Two of the men blew shrilly through the same sort of stick-whistle that Tilda and Dugan had bought, and she had later resold, as passes for bullywug rafts. She was surprised that the sound produced sounded quite similar to the bullywugs’ weird hoots.
Gorpal and his wugs croaked together in a circle for a few minutes, then shrugged and began to pole toward the islet. Gorpal splayed on his sopping lounge chair and opened the dripping parasol that had somehow survived the storm.
Towsan was not pleased. The knight shouted at the wug captain who only waved a dismissive, webbed hand. Claudja put a hand on Towsan’s arm and the two spoke at length, the knight obviously wanting no part of the ruffians while the Duchess’s words sounded more sympathetic.
Tilda looked at Dugan who was frowning at the six Daulmen with his arms crossed. She started to ask him a question in the Trade Tongue before remembering to switch to Codian.