“We’ve been expecting this request, and we put two aside just for the Duke and his Lady,” the workman said, wiping his hands on his apron. “Will you come have a look? I expect you’ll need to see them to understand what you can bring down from the manor.”

She nodded, and he took her to the back of the enormous storage area, where there were two barges off to one side, set on a platform of rough-sawn planks to keep them off the dirt. As they approached, Delia could not help but notice that these barges were considerably more “finished” than the ones loaded with grain from the manor had been.

Windows had been cut along one of the slanted upper sides of each of the two barges. Shutters that could be closed and locked to keep out weather had been installed on either side of the windows, and glass had been fitted into frames in the holes. It wasn’t the best glass possible—it had bubbles and a few thick ripples—but she assumed that, amidst the stepped-up schedule for the escape, they used what they had at hand at the moment. The barges had been painted in muted browns with black trim, and wooden decking was laid on the narrow walkways around the sides and at the prow and stern. Rough-cast brass cleats and rings were set at corners, and boarding planks could apparently be used to link several boats together. A stout wooden door at the prow, which faced her, gave into the interior of the barge, and the workman climbed up to the prow, helped her up, and flung the stout door open to let her inside.

Inside, everything had been painted white, which made it look much larger than she would have thought. And there was room to stand upright, which she had not been expecting. Wooden decking had been laid down with hatches in it at intervals. “You’ll store anything that is waterproof beneath the hatches, milady,” the workman said. “She shouldn’t leak, but if she does, you won’t want to lose what’s down there. Or, you could stow wood for the fire down there, which is what I’d do, so there’s not wood in the way all the time, and so you can have as much as you’ll need for several days. The gods only know what sort of weather you’ll meet out there, and you know for yourself that we’ve had snows that kept us to the manor for days at a time. You might not be able to get out for wood, and it’ll be just you and your maidservants until people can break a trail to you.”