They didn't. The storm that had been threatening to burst ever since they'd embarked managed to wait until they were unloading at Torcea dock before letting rip. Consequently, Poldarn's first impression of the big city was a stinging curtain of rain that cut visibility down to less than fifteen yards, with a backdrop of forked lightning.
'Looks like we brought the weather with us,' Ciana said, yelling to make himself heard over the drumming of the rain. He was soaked to the skin, his grey hair plastered down over his forehead, even his vast moustache limp and soggy, but the cold and the wet didn't seem capable of damping down his infuriating good humour. 'It's not usually like this until mid-autumn, but obviously the wet season's set in early. No bad thing, it washes the stink off the streets.'
Poldarn tried to say goodbye as soon as they'd finished hauling the gear across to Ciana's warehouse, but the hunter wasn't so easily shaken off. 'Don't be silly,' he roared, when Poldarn suggested looking for an inn for the night. 'You won't find anywhere round here at this time of year-you'll end up dossing down under the viaduct arches. You come on home with me, I'll show you my trophy collection.'
The hammering of raindrops on the warehouse roof drowned out Poldarn's response, which was probably just as well. He had no money, no clothes other than those he stood up in, and his left boot had sprung a leak. Also, he had no idea where to go, or how to set about accomplishing what he'd come here to do. 'Thanks,' he replied, 'that's really very kind of you.'
Ciana's house was slightly smaller than Falcata, but not by much. Once they'd passed under the gate in the outer wall (twenty feet high and six feet thick at the base) they crossed a courtyard big enough to corral a couple of hundred head of cattle, passing a small town of outbuildings, sheds and storehouses, until they reached another gate in another vast defensive wall, which Ciana opened with a small silver key.
'I'm home,' he bawled, as he led the way into a lobby that reminded Poldarn of a fairy story he must've heard when he was young, about the prince who climbed up the magic pepper-vine to the giant's castle. A giant would've been perfectly comfortable in Ciana's house, provided that he had plenty of furniture to fill up the open spaces.
Doors flew open, and men and women streamed out and started grabbing luggage, bustling it away out of sight, all with the same horrible cheerfulness that Poldarn had got so tired of over the last two days on the boat. In the time it took them to walk from the front entrance to the next set of doors, Poldarn and Ciana were stripped of their wet clothes, towelled dry, and dressed in long, warm wool gowns that made a soft huffing noise as they dragged over the shiny marble floor; while behind them, three tall, gaunt men with mops wiped away their wet, muddy footprints.
'That you?' screeched a woman's voice as the second set of doors were opened for them. Now they were in a dining hall half as long and high again as the Charity amp; Diligence in Sansory, where Poldarn had first met Cleapho. A high gallery, its turned wooden balustrades painted and gilded in an overwhelming variety of colours, ran round three sides of it. Dead centre of the gallery on the far side stood a woman-at least, Poldarn assumed there was a human being somewhere inside the vast billow of fabrics from which the loud voice appeared to be coming. 'That you?' she repeated. 'Have a good trip?'
'Fine,' Ciana replied, as if he'd just stepped out to buy anchovies. 'This is Poldarn, he'll be staying a few days. Where's the mail?'
'Study,' replied the voice among the draperies. 'Dinner's cooking.' Poldarn's newly acquired instinct helped him judge the distance between the woman on the balcony and himself; too far away for her to see his burned, melted face. 'Tell your friend he can have the Oak Suite.'
She disappeared backwards through a pair of enormous panelled doors. 'My wife,' Ciana explained. 'Come on, I'll show you to your room.'
Up the gallery stairs, down one side, down a long corridor hung with dark tapestries that stank of dust, left down another corridor, carpeted and lined with frescoes of sea battles. Eventually, Ciana stopped outside a door (it looked like it had been planked out of a single tree, except there couldn't possibly ever have been a tree that tall and wide) and pushed it open with his fingertip. 'Hope this'll be all right,' he said. 'We don't entertain much, so we only keep a couple of rooms ready. Still, it keeps the rain off.'
Before Poldarn could say anything, four women pushed past him into the room, carrying a huge laundry basket between them like orderlies bearing the wounded from a battlefield. Once inside, they moved so fast, brandishing sheets and blankets and skinning pillowcases off horse-sized pillows, that it was impossible to see past them and admire the view. 'Someone'll be up with water for a bath,' Ciana was saying, 'and then it'll be time for dinner. Not the same as a simple meal under the trees, but you can't have everything.' Then Poldarn lost sight of him behind the whirling clouds of laundry, though he saw the door close.
The women finished whatever they'd been doing and vanished like elves, leaving Poldarn alone in the Oak Suite. Why it was called that he wasn't quite sure, since as far as the eye could see every surface was either black marble or extravagantly carved and gilded burr walnut. In the far corner was a sort of pavilion affair, inside which he guessed there was a bed. On a broad table (wealthy farmers in Tulice worked smaller acreages) was a tall pile of neatly folded clothes for him to change into. A solid silver bath stood in front of the fireplace like a raider ship dragged home and set up as a trophy of war. He'd just taken off the gown that he'd been manhandled into in the entrance hall and was about to put on the new clothes (thick, soft and surprisingly plain woollen shirt, trousers and socks) when the door opened yet again and a dozen women-different ones, as far as he could tell-burst into the room holding tall copper jugs that filled the air with steam. They took no notice of Poldarn, standing in the middle of the room with a face covered in scar tissue and no clothes on; they filled the bath, laid out a tall pile of white towels, and disappeared.
A bath, Poldarn thought, staring at it. Not a dip in a river or a splash of water out of a pool or dunking your head in the slack-tub: an actual bath, indoors, in hot water. Have I ever had one of these before? Must have, or else the smell of the steam wouldn't seem so familiar, and I wouldn't be looking forward to it so much. Chances are I used to enjoy baths, at some stage in my career.
The water was hot; considerably hotter than he'd anticipated when he'd vaulted over the towering side and plunged in. For three or four agonising heartbeats he was convinced he was about to die, but then the pain and shock faded, replaced by a feeling of overwhelming comfort. Wonderful bath, he thought, I've missed this-He frowned but decided not to worry about it. Someone had left a tall, slender bronze jug on a pedestal next to the bath, where he could just manage to reach it from where he lay. It was full of some white, milky liquid, and a little voice at the back of his mind said that the right thing to do was pour this stuff over his head, knead it into his hair, hold his breath and duck under the water for a bit. He wasn't quite sure what this performance was designed to achieve, but the instinct was terribly strong. He tried it, and surfaced a few moments later to find that the bathwater had all turned the same milky white colour. Amazing, he thought.