“Will we stay at an inn, then?” she asked, still half-wishing they could stop in the comfortable house of some loyal noble, risks be damned. “That seems dangerous, too. Do you think no one will remark on a black-skinned man and a young girl?”

“People might remark less than you think,” Shaso said with a snort. “Landers Port may never have seen the old king of Syan, but it is a busy fishing town and boats land every day from all parts of Eion and even beyond. But no, we will not be stopping in a tavern full of gossips and layabouts. We might as well announce our arrival from the steps of the town’s temple.”

“Oh, merciful Zoria,” she said, knowing that going on about it only made her seem a pampered child, but at this moment not caring. “It’s to be another shack, then. Some fisherman’s hut stinking of mackerel, with a leaking roof.”

“If you do not stop your complaining, I may arrange just such a lodging,” he said, and pulled his cloak tighter against the rain.

Full night had fallen and the city gate was closing, the watchmen bawling curses at the stragglers. In the undifferentiated mass of wet wool hoods and cloaks, the jostling of people and animals, Briony and Shaso did not seem to attract much notice, but she still held her breath while the guards at the gate looked them over and did not let it out until they were past the walls and inside.

The old man took her by the arm, pulling her out of the crowd of latecomers and down a tiny side-alley, the houses so close that their upper levels seemed about to butt each other like rams in spring. Briony could smell fish, both fresh and smoked, and here and there even the aroma of fresh bread. Her stomach twisted with desire, but Shaso hurried her down dark streets lit only by guttering cookfires visible through the open doorways. Voices came to her, dreamlike in her hunger and cold, some speaking words she could understand but many that she could not, either because of thick accents or unfamiliar tongues.

They had obviously entered the town’s poorest quarter, not a shred of horn or glass in any window, no light but meager fires in the crowded downstairs rooms, and Briony’s heart sank. Reeking straw was going to be her bed tonight, and small, leggy things would be crawling on her in the cold dark. At least she and Shaso had a little money. She would settle for no leavings of cheese and bread from the morning. She would command, or at least demand, that he buy them something hot—a bowl of pottage, perhaps even some meat if there was such a thing as a clean butcher in this part of the town.

“Be very quiet now,” said Shaso abruptly, putting out his arm to stop her. They were in the deepest shadow they had yet found, the only illumination the nearly invisible, cloud-dimmed moon, and it took her a moment to realize they were standing beside a high stone wall. When he had listened for a moment—Briony could hear nothing at all except her own breathing and the never-ending patter of rain—the old man stepped toward the wall and, to her astonishment, pounded his knuckles on what sounded like a wooden door. How he could have found such a thing in the near-perfect darkness, let alone known it was there in the first place, she had no idea.