I had to admit that Andraescav had done a good job. The boat he had commandeered was long and swift. It sat high in the water, having been recently unloaded, and it smelled nice, as it had been carrying a cargo of the northern resins that the king’s perfumers value so much. Best of all, it had no deck rail, and was therefore easy to leap onto. I managed the leap with something approaching grace, then tripped and fell directly into Princess Iyedraeka’s arms. This was embarrassing for both of us, yet we clung to each other for a moment, as if by doing so we could somehow make our embrace intentional. She was very slight, and I could feel the sharpness of her bones through her robes. I was conscious of the musk of my own body, which smelled of dung and close-packed humans and ginger from a steamed bun that I had eaten earlier that day. The smell of the city. We were like two weather systems meeting — her scent full of sunshine and frequent bathing, the smell of the palace, and mine caked over with street grime. But she didn’t seem repulsed. She even turned her face up and kissed my jawline. It surprised me so much that I stepped away too quickly, and then worried that I had offended her. It was just a daughterly kiss, of course. I hadn’t realized until that moment that she missed her father. She was an exile in our fair kingdom, and must have felt very much alone.

  The old river towers had gained a new prominence with the widening of the river and the increase in trade. They occupied their carefully constructed island between the bendy, snaking river and the canals that move through Tarahnvae District, flowing under the many bridges. Ships were assembling for the Golden Flotilla along the quay, and they diminished in the distance as we left them behind. The elephant that was pulling our boat plodded slowly, and small boys ran after it, collecting its patties as they fell. They would take the elephant’s rather fibrous shit to a paper maker, who would wash it and extract the half-digested reeds and turn them into the thick and porous sheets that the scribes use in the marketplaces. Such is the life of the city. An elephant eats, it poops, and someone receives a love letter in some far away place. Cynical, I know, but I was suffering the aftermath of Iyedraeka’s kiss, and once again rejecting physical love.

  I watched the guard towers as we went by. No true guard wants to be posted to the river. It’s the guards who are officious and like to niggle over details who end up in those towers. The type of guard who is afraid to enter into a street brawl, and would rather sharpen a stylus than a sword. They live in those narrow towers and gaze down on the river and stand on the quays and board the boats and take their inventories and accept their bribes. A life without adventure, for the most part. They spend their days with merchants, and are therefore more sympathetic to the merchants than they are to ordinary people. Their loyalty to the king has been questioned on many an occasion.

  I was thinking about them as I watched the elephant shit because the river would take us past Viepahrik District, and Captain Gaetisma of the Viepahrik Guard had once served on the river. That was in the days when the long boats came lazily and infrequently down, before the trade with Hasra grew and the King of Drachahda signed a treaty with Old Poritifahr. Life was easier for the River Guard in those days, and I’d heard many complaints from them in the last few years. They liked to come into the taverns and wine shops and grouse about the doubling of work that the river project represented. Of course, on those days when I and my comrades were nursing split heads and broken bones, we showed very little sympathy for the River Guard. Which only doubled their complaining, since now they could also complain that no one took them seriously.

  Gaetisma, that bastard, had a face like an egg that had grown a few tumors on its shell. Arched eyebrows, wide eyes, a delicate and round nose, and a mouth that was dangerous to watch. It could capture all of your attention, because it looked like a crack in the egg shell, and you kept expecting the yoke to come oozing out of it. Not a handsome man. And he was utterly corrupt. His time in the River Guard had taught him the art of demanding bribes, taking bribes, threatening those who bribed him with punishment for daring to bribe him, and demanding that they bribe his superiors so that everyone would be nicely guilty. As I’ve already said, he did nothing for poor Maetahtild in her hours of need, and when he dies it will be with the satisfaction of never having helped a single person beyond himself. Yet he has many friends and compatriots, for in addition to being a guard captain he is also a pander. There were rumors that he occasionally obtained young girls for Prince Dasuekoh.

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  This train of thought led me to glance at Iyedraeka, who was, of course, Dasuekoh’s wife. She was standing at the prow of the boat, and Andraescav was standing anxiously at her side. As I said, there was no deck rail, and I assumed that he meant to keep her from falling into the water in the event of the boat’s jostling. I ignored him and surreptitiously studied her. There was something very fervent about her expression. I thought of the court poems that had been written about her on her wedding day. Not that I could remember many of them. Court poems embarrass me, with their lines about perfumed breasts and necks like gazelles. They make it seem like the person being described is a kind of watchman in their own right, looking out into some vague and disturbing night and hoping that their lover hasn’t died or abandoned them. I found myself wondering if Iyedraeka had a lover, and if so who it could be. A suspicion formed in my mind.

  As I said before, she went to the shrine three or four times a year, and I always assumed that this was just her way of getting to know the family that she’d married into. But she was a polite person, and usually she wouldn’t hurry there on a corvee day, when everyone would be inconvenienced by her trip. Something was up. I glanced around and spotted Martiveht. She was standing by the helm, where the boat’s captain was negligently steering, a look of great resignation on his face. I went to her and drew her away to the stern for a private conversation.

  “Which ancestors appeared in your dream?” I asked.

  She gave me a sharp, appraising look. “I thought that we both liked useful fictions.”

  “So no ancestors. There was no dream.”

  “Captain,” she said, “it is best if you leave open the possibility that there was.”

  “I’ll leave open many possibilities,” I told her. “But I need to protect the princess. Why does she really want to go to the shrine?”

  Martiveht hooded her expression. “It is not a maid-in-waiting’s place to divulge the secrets of her mistress.”

  “Yes, but you’re not a maid-in-waiting. You’re a Sasturi medium who just happens to be young and pretty.”

  She refused to be moved by my clumsy compliment. “I help bathe and dress her. I bring her tea and comfort her when she cries in the night. I am as much a maid-in-waiting as any other.”

  “She cries in the night?”

  Martiveht studied my face, then lowered her eyes. She refused to answer any more questions.

  Aerengaj, or the Great Eastern Elephant

  from The Curator’s Commonplace Book, excerpt written by Katemzani Huenaedra Daturi in the year 344

  aerengaj, is quite tamable, and that the one they brought was mostly used for hauling timber. Then they showed me its surprising trick. One of the men goaded the creature by poking it sharply in its hindquarters. Up it went, roaring in the courtyard, and two of its twisting trunks hardened into tusks. One of the men told me that a vivisectionist had visited his village and dissected a dead aerengaj, but could not determine how soft flesh could become heavy bone. No matter. This world is full of absurdities, as any scholar knows.