And so did passengers come and go, some pleasant, some silent, some quite loquacious.
During one part of the journey, they had come into a rather darkling forest, and Scruff had chirped and had grabbed a tress of Camille’s hair and had taken to the high vest pocket. There Louis had whipped up the horses, and they had flown through the region, jouncing and rattling bones, Gautier complaining loudly. Sometime later, although the horses yet sped, Scruff had emerged and had scrambled to his usual perch, and in but moments Louis had slowed the coach, allowing the lathered horses to plod. Shortly after, he had stopped for a while, allowing the passengers to stretch their legs, while he and Albert and Girard and Thoreau wiped the horses down and fed them a bit of grain, as well as bore buckets of water to them from a nearby stream. Of the woodland hindward, Louis had said nought, though the lads-Girard and Thoreau-kept eyeing the way aft.
It was during the very last leg of the journey that Camille and Scruff and stout Gautier had been alone in the coach, and Camille had had to forcefully rebuff more than one advance, Scruff chirping and pecking at the man’s fingers whenever a hand came near. At the very first rest stop, Camille had asked Louis if she and Scruff could ride on the seat beside him. Louis had taken one look at the stout man, and had called for one of the footmen to give over his seat to her. Girard and Thoreau had played some kind of finger game to see which would do so, and black-haired Girard had shouted in victory, and, even as he had helped Camille to a seat beside him, he beamed broadly at Thoreau, while fair-haired Thoreau had glumly climbed into the coach following after the stout man.
And so it was that Camille and Scruff were sitting high on a bench at the back of the red coach when Les Iles came into view.
“Oh my, Scruff, but look.”
The coach rumbled along the road high atop a riverside bluff, the river itself quite broad, five miles or so in width, a high, precipitous bluff opposite as well. And Camille saw spread out below them, there in the green flow of water, a city of red tile and white stone built on a series of sheer-walled, granite-sided islands all connected together by wooden spans and swaying rope-and-board bridges. Some of the islands were small, others quite large, yet about each were docks and piers, with boats of all manner moored in the stream or securely berthed in the slips; other boats as well could be seen plying the river. Wooden ladders and steps, or those carved in stone, rose some fifty to one hundred or so feet from the docks to the streets above, streets which bustled with commerce. Here and there, among the white stone buildings with their red-tile roofs, stands of trees grew; perhaps these were the parks Louis had spoken of, parks where minstrels sang and played.
“Oh, Girard, how many islands in all?” asked Camille, turning to the lad.
Girard, who had not spoken a word to her the full of the trip and who blushed madly whenever Camille had looked his way, with his voice breaking between that of a child and a youth, managed to say, “Nineteen, I think, or twenty, if you count that little one there.” He pointed downriver, and Camille saw a tiny isle set off quite a distance by itself with but a single dwelling thereon. No span connected it to the others, and Camille could see no ladders, no stairs, no dock along the facing sheer side.
Once more Camille looked directly at the lad. “Who lives there?”
Again Girard blushed. “Um, they say it’s the River Lady, though no one I know knows for certain.”
“River Lady?”
“Mm, hm. Eternally grieving, rumor tells, though I don’t know why.”
Camille frowned at the islet, then scanned for other isles. Across and upstream, a great cascade poured over the far-side bluff and down, its sound a distant roar. Farther upstream and along a curving-away turn, Camille could see a great notch in the near-side bluff, and there another river issued out into the main flow. Downstream the bluffs curved away beyond seeing, but just at the far bend, on the near side yet another river poured through a notch, though not a tributary as large as the ones upstream.
“Girard, I can only see three rivers; Louis said that the city was at the confluence of four.”
Red-faced, still Girard managed a sheepish grin. “Same mistake I made when I first saw this place, ma’amselle. The fourth river-”
“-Is the river itself,” said Camille, laughing. “How obtuse of me to not see it.”
“Then I suppose that makes me, um, obtuse, too,” said Girard glumly.
“Oh, forgive me, Girard,” said Camille, reaching out and taking his hand, which she found to be quite moist. “I did not mean to imply such.”
Releasing the lad’s hand, Camille turned her attention once again to the isles. “What are those great cages I see sitting along the docks?”
“Um, see the ropes leading up to those booms above? They winch cargo from the docks up to the city, or cargo from the city down to the docks. Sometimes people, too, those who can’t or won’t use the steps.”
“How clever,” said Camille. “But for me, I believe I’ll take the stairs.”
“You won’t have to if you don’t wish to, L-lady Camille,” said Girard, pointing ahead. “You can cross over on a bridge, if you wish. It’ll cost you a copper.”
In the near distance, a long rope-and-board bridge spanned from the bluff to the nearest isle.
“Of course, if you wish, you can take the ferry over instead,” Girard added, “though it’ll cost more, depending on which isle you’re ferried to.”
“I’ll take the bridge,” said Camille, “for I would walk the length of the city.”
“Bridge!” Girard called to Louis. Then he said to Camille, “Louis would stop there anyway, but I just wanted to make certain. And as for walking the length of the ville, it’ll take more than a day.”
“Know you of any good inns, somewhere near the midmost isle?”
“Well, there’s the Green Toad, but not for a lady like you. Then there’s-no wait, that’s quite bawdy, too.-Oh, I know, the Crown and Scepter, but it’s quite expensive and a bit out of the way. Still, a fine lady like yourself, ma’amselle, well, uh-”
Camille smiled as Girard stuttered to a halt. “Thank you, my friend,” said Camille, squeezing the red-faced lad’s still-damp hand. “The Crown and Scepter it is. Where might I find such?”
“Just stay on the main street across the isles, till you come to that big one yon. Then make your way along the road following the downstream bluff. It’ll be on your left midway along the rim.”
The red coach rumbled to a stop at the near end of the span. Like a flash, Thoreau slammed open the coach door and leapt out to hand Camille down, the fair-haired lad smirking at Girard, who was left to retrieve Camille’s goods from the roof and toss them to Thoreau, then clamber down from the footmen’s bench to deal with the stout man.
“Stupid boy,” Gautier snarled at Girard. “You don’t think I’m going to walk that, now do you?”
Girard sighed and closed the door; the man would be taken to the docks below to catch the ferry across to whichever isle he paid the ferrymen to take him, where, no doubt, he would ride a cage to the top.
Camille was relieved that she wouldn’t have to cross the bridge with Gautier, and she thanked Girard and Thoreau and Albert and Louis, and would have given each a bronze, but Louis pushed out a staying hand, saying, “Non, ma’amselle, the gold and two silvers paid it all.” Camille then bade adieu, and shouldered her bedroll and waterskin and rucksack, and took her stave in hand-one hundred twenty-three blossoms gone, the one-hundred and twenty-fourth blossom withering-and, as the red coach rolled on, with Girard and Thoreau on their high bench arear and looking back at her, she set out across the bridge, Scruff on her shoulder, the rope-and-board span jouncing a bit underfoot, the sparrow chirping that it was time to eat.
Never had Camille seen so many people bustling to and fro; to her eye the streets seemed utterly jammed; how anyone avoided collisions, she could not say, yet they managed to do so. People rushed thither and yon, bearing baskets, pushing carts, towing small wagons, all laden with goods. Others were there as welclass="underline" shoppers, hawkers, a group of street urchins dodging in and out among the grown-ups, laughing, playing at some game. Merchants stood in doorways and invited passersby in. Playing a lyre and a lute and a drum and a fife, a quartet of strolling musicians winnowed among the mass. These and more did Camille see, and to her eye it was all quite confusing: much like a thousand motes of dust dancing in a beam of sunlight, and as with them, she couldn’t seem to pick out from the crowd any given mote.