Figurehead

twenty-three

Ronseluf. The most densely packed city of all the empire, and although not a large one, it takes a long time to press through its crowds. The streets are fairly thin, many of the buildings in poor condition. As we push through, it is easy to see many people occupying the flat rooftops of dwellings, with unsteady steps built for easier access. It is as if the rooftops are dwellings themselves. On some of the larger streets, there are people sitting or crouching under the temporary roofing, some guarding sleeping children on pallets. The homeless. Many of them were forced to evacuate Kalsemir.

Jast is definitely jumpy, forcing me to hold the reins more tightly. There are children running around here, after all. Fik is worse. He may be gaining plenty of attention for his glossy coat and high head, but he doesn't seem to like it. Instinct, maybe, telling him the attention isn't because of his beauty or regality. That it is because we are messengers passing through the province. It isn't hard to guess we are headed for Deritri. After all, horses would not be needed if we were to continue through to Huistef.

Tui shoots me a glance, dropping from Fik's back and yanking on his reins as he whinnies and rears up on his hind legs, head tossing, tail flicking wildly. The crowd scatters around him, Jast barely controllable as she tries to buck me off. I slide from her back and tug on her reins, trying to calm her down with a hushed murmur, running my other hand over her mane and neck. It takes a while before the crowd can push forward again, a pressing current.

The noise surrounding us is a rumble of murmuring and whispering and hushed talking, but altogether it is chaos to my ears. The sound can be heard from a distance outside the city, where the few fields are filled with farmhands and surrounded by packed farmhouses and dwellings.

"What's going on?" I hiss to Tui as we walk slowly, our horses on either side. I slip Jast a crumbled sweet, trying to calm her further.

She shrugs, frowning. "Too many people? I don't know. Maybe they know a storm is coming, or the noises and smells are too much."

As we grow nearer to where the road widens into the central marketplace, a vast expanse filled with stalls and people, the smells mixing in the air of dried and fresh foods, meat, fruit, vegetables, grains, the occasional sweet or sour scent, grow stronger. Underlying it all is the scent of carrion, or ever-so-slowly-rotting produce. There is sweet, bitter, sour, smoked, crisp, all sorts. Too much to take in at once for me. Worse still for the horses, probably.

And here where the road parts and expands, the crowd parts into streams of people going separate ways. Every now and then, a lantern fly crosses our path, a fiery blinking glow in the darkness.

"Where do you think the stables are?" I ask my companion. They are probably only small, with few horses kept within, if any at all. If there are even stables within the city itself. There is not enough space for them here, that much is clear. Horses would only be needed out on the fields; but then, there are so many people willing to work as farmhands, so perhaps not even there.

She shrugs. "Probably only on the farms on the western border."

I exhale sharply. "Let's go, then." She nods once.

It took less than half a day to reach Ronseluf's centre- the marketplace- and already now we stand in one of the few stables in the province. It is not long past first light.

This is not a very large city. If one was to walk the border of Ronseluf, it would take them only at least a day. It would take at least two to walk Aranakiu's border, and at least three for Anshakim.

Most farms in this province consist of fields that stretch past the map-drawn borders, since Ronseluf is not large. Here on the west, there are fields extending into the land, reaching the feet of the hills. The Sirdiu mentioned a redrawing of the maps a few months ago. I wonder if it has begun yet.