For the first mile or so, Mosca sat tensely among the bales, expecting every moment to hear cries from the bank. She felt sure that the barge would be ordered ashore by the river police of the Watermen’s Guild, and she would find herself dragged back to Kempe Teetering for arson and goose theft and hanged without delay. Clent, she had no doubt, would sell her out immediately to the constables if they were apprehended.

Somehow, though, as the barge eased its way through the lapping leagues, the sun started to seep into her head, and it began to seem possible, just possible, that she would not end the day dangling from the Kempe Teetering bridge as a new scaregull. It was probably the new clothes, she decided. She felt as if she had borrowed somebody else’s body and somebody else’s life, and would probably find herself back in her own before very much longer.

The sun pricked holes in the weave of her hat and danced from ripple to ripple as the Maid eased its way through a haze of midges and a chase of jeweled damselflies. As the barge approached, moorhens abandoned their gossiping in midriver, and in the green darks among the nettles coots crouched and stared down their white beaks.

Each vessel they passed flew a flag proudly announcing its royal allegiance. In theory, everybody in the country agreed that the Realm needed a monarch again, and was on tenterhooks to discover who the Committee of Kingmakers would choose to fill the throne. In practice, the Committee had been on the brink of a decision for twenty years, and many of the would-be kings and queens waiting in exile had died and handed on their claims to their children. In the meantime the Realm had broken up into a series of smaller city-states, each avowing allegiance to a different distant monarch, and leaving only the Capital truly under the control of the Parliament.

In theory, Chough lay in an area where everybody supported King Prael. In practice, Mosca knew nothing about him except that all the carvings of him looked rather old, and gave him a long chin.

As she watched, a barge painted with the Weeping Owl heraldry of King Cinnamon the Misjudged passed by a wherry that flew the crossed crimson swords of the Parliament. To Mosca’s slight disappointment, everybody seemed more interested in hauling ropes than engaging in naval warfare. Each crew made a brief offensive gesture toward the other boat, but no one seemed to have their heart in it.