The CRES code

Chapter Fifty Eight - Arrivals

     Jane was waiting at the terminus station just inside Harper's Wall when the carriage from Dilchester arrived.

     It passed right through the outer circle of the city along Lendaron Street without stopping, as it was carrying aristocrats and they couldn't be exposed to the great unwashed common folk. The peasantry did occasionally take carriages to other cities around Saxony, if they could afford the extravagent fares, but not this carriage. This carriage was painted in black and gold and the driver and his two crossbow wielding guards were dressed in splendid, colourful uniforms with hats that sported white swan feathers. There were curtains of crimson velvet in the windows and the seats were padded with embroidered cushions of duck feathers. Any person of substance would quail at the thought of the common folk desecrating this beautiful carriage with their sweaty, dusty clothes and filling the delicate ears of its passengers with their coarse, uncouth language. No, they could take one of the lesser carriages that travelled the narrow, winding roads of Saxony. This one was reserved for the rich. The second tier of the city's populace. The top tier, of course, the Barons and the most powerful of the city's businessmen, had carriages of their own and a small army of guards to see that it came to no harm.

     Jane watched as one of the guards climbed carefully down from his high seat beside the driver and open the door for the passengers. The first to emerge was a man in his thirties dressed in red, that being the fashionable colour at the moment. He was holding a handkerchief to his face as he stepped delicately down onto the crushed gravel of the street, and the cape that hung down his back sported an emblem Jane recognised, identifying him as a member of the Jolden family. A rather junior member if the thin and unimpressive gold necklace he was wearing was any indication. He held out a hand for his wife to help her disembark and their young son jumped down after them, his belted hat held in one hand. "Put your hat on, Edmund," said the woman, frowning sternly. "It's unbecoming to show a bare head in public." The boy obeyed with a grimace of distaste.

     Another passenger climbed carefully out behind them, an important looking businessman in a matching coat, waistcoat and breeches followed by a rather less important looking assistant, and then came the woman that Jane was waiting for. Emily Turner, dressed in the finery of a minor aristocrat with a long, flowing dress and a wide brimmed hat to which a cockerel's red tail feather was pinned at a jaunty angle. She had a blue veil over her face signifying in the complicated code of Saxony's dress protocol that she was unmarried but not looking for a husband.

     Jane stepped forward to meet her. She was wearing her best clothes but they paled in comparison to the garb of an aristocrat. The other passengers pointedly avoided looking at her, probably assuming that she was a family servant come to greet her mistress. They were making their way to smaller horse drawn carriages that we're waiting across the street to collect them and take them to their mansions.

     "Emily," said Jane uncertainly. The last time they'd been face to face Emily had been fighting Randall and Loach while Jane had stood by, watching. Did she harbour resentment towards her for not joining the battle on her side? Jane was uncomfortably aware that the other woman had been a terrorist and a murderer in her original life. She would have little trouble killing her if she decided that it had to be done.

     Emily smiled, though, and held out a gloved hand. Jane took it thankfully, wondering whether she should do a little curtsy for the benefit of the people in the street who could see them. Should she put on an act of being a servant for their benefit? To avoid suspicion? Blow that, she decided. I am a servant of God, not a servant of this hateful sinner whose presence I only endure because it serves a higher purpose. Let the people wonder. Who cares?

     "Jane,"  said Emily pleasantly, as if she were greeting an old and dearly beloved friend. "So good to see you again. It seems like years."