It is the worst road in the kingdom, I am told. Anyone moving east or west along the coast would take the faster journey by sea, so the road exists only for the convenience of those who live along it, & their labor, or their sense of duty, is insufficient to keep it in repair. The great carriage of the Embassy Royal heaved itself along the road like a bull seal wallowing on a beach, lurching from rock to rut to pothole, & every toss & roll & pitch rattled my teeth & shivered my brains. After the first day I shifted my aching backside to the lighter baggage coach, which travels with more ease.
The coast road does not always run within sight of the coast, but when it did, I saw the corsairs’ dark chebecs on the sea, cruising for new captures. I wondered if they were laying ambushes along the road, and whether I might actually need to use my ridiculous sword.
More likely my legs. I have run from the reivers once, and I could do it again.
Because the astrologer had insisted on the Embassy leaving in the afternoon rather than morning, we didn’t reach the first posting inn until after midnight, & found the gates locked against corsairs. Eventually the landlord was roused, & the gates unlocked. There was no food. The Immodest Apothecary informed me I was not entitled to a bed, & so I rolled myself into my overcoat on a bench in the bathhouse, which at least was clean.
On the second day of our long, wrenching journey we climbed a series of stony hills and came out above a lovely bay called Gannet Cove. D’you know it? The water is deep, & protected from southeast storms by a pine-fletched peninsula, & from the west by a skerry crowned with a perfect hemisphere of darting sea birds. There is a village of fisher-folk there, but when they saw the chebecs of the reivers offshore, they fled above the cliffs behind the beach & built themselves drystone shelters, like the shepherd people do. Gannet Cove would make a fine port if those cliffs did not cut it off from the commerce of the country, & if there were a broad river like the Ostra or the Saelle to bring in the produce of the hinterland. But because the cliffs wall them off from commerce, the fishers live in driftwood huts & marry their cousins.
That night the Great Embassy got to the posting inn after dark, but there was some kind of village meeting going on, & the place was full, & the spits charged with meat. The August Personage was distressed that he shared the dining room with common folk so ignorant they knew not to worship him, & he wanted manchet-loaves of white flour instead of the cheat & raveled bread served by the landlord. (Milord Utterback, as if he were a Person & not an Eminence, ate the cheat with what an objective eye might have deemed pleasure.)
I was not deemed worthy of sharing a table with the Personage, but making friends with a serving-girl, Lucy of the bright eyes & scarlet hair, I had the better meal, to-wit, a fine pottage of onions, peas, and carrots, with bits of bacon and firm whitefish; and after, a roast quail, followed by a joint of venison which I carved myself, and lastly a cheese. Plus a jack of spiced wine that had grown steamy by the hearth. That great-gutted luxurious gastrologist the Emperor Philippus had no better, I vow, for all his bustards stuffed with ortolans. (Do you like “gastrologist?” I just made it up.)
Again I was not allowed a bed, but told to sleep in the stable with the other servants; but my new friend Lucy had a little cottage nearby, and there we kept warm all night long, with a little help from the mulled wine. I arrived at breakfast happy & refreshed, but the two Ambassadors had spent a v. uncomfortable night, having less pleasing bed partners than I—they came downstairs fleabit & lousy. I was very pleased not to share their carriage and their scratching, & I felt v. righteous in that pleasure.
The next three days’ journey to Amberstone was a wearisome repetition: the wretchedness of the road, the poverty of the inhabitants, the dreariness of the company + clouds & rain to snuff out all remaining joy. No Lucy appeared to assuage my boredom, & no beds, with or without vermin. Yet straw in the stables has its simple country virtues, & is warm enough I believe.
And now we will spend our third night in the city, guests of Count Older, cousin-german of my lord Utterback. I sleep beneath the eaves, in neither the best nor the worst bed I have enjoyed this journey. The Ambassadors spoke with the Lord Warden in hopes that he would send some of his soldiers to help secure Ethlebight & the New Castle, & I believe progress has been made there, so our travel has not been a complete waste. And the grand abbot said he would send monks!—so you will not be without your philosophical comforts, be ye ever so poor and hungry.
The Ambassadors are also taking a great many baths & being deloused generally. I and the monks shall pray for their success.
Now that we have reached the city, I have abandoned the coaches and bought a horse. It is a chestnut gelding & is agèd but not completely dilapidated, or so the dealer informs me. It is a palfrey & on the little ride I took yesterday ambles with a v. easy gait. Its name is Toast, after its favorite food.
I had hoped we might be able to sail from here to Selford, but the Aekoi blockade extends even this far. Captures have been made within sight of the town, one so close that the forts fired their great guns, but managed not to hit anything. But I see Irresistible, a great high-charged galleon, is being fitted out in the town, a private vessel owned by the Marquess of Stayne. It has four masts, with demicannon on the lower deck, culverins on the upper, & an array of sakers, minions, falconets, and such other mankillers on the castles fore and aft. Soon it shall be “busked and boun,” as the saying is, & I cannot imagine the corsairs could stand against it, even their whole fleet together, so long as there was enough wind to keep steerage-way & prevent the chebecs from rowing up under the stern to rake her.
There are also some royal vessels being brought out of ordinary, & they should cross their yards within the week. So possibly it will be the reivers who are blockaded on Cow Island, so may it please the gods.
But I have forgot to tell you the good news! Your ship Meteor hath come into Amberstone, laden with olives, figs, pickled fish, & pipes of wine from Varcellos! I know you were worried that the corsairs would take her, but she came in just before the chebecs appeared off the port, & is quite safe. You may rejoice, & may this be the restoration of your fortune.
There is now discord among the Ambassadors concerning our next step: should we continue along the coast road four or five days to Newton Linn, & there hope for a boat to take us the three days’ journey to Selford, or should we go overland direct for Selford by way of Mavors’ Road, which is the shorter way but goeth over the Toppings, which is said to be “all hill and no broad,” & will be difficult for the big carriage to traverse & take at least twelve days. I spoke for Newton Linn & the sea-route, and my lord Utterback agreed in his barely audible way; but the Personage has not yet given up his vision of a grand entrance into Selford, with all falling on their awestruck knees at the sight of a coach worthy of a god, & so I fear it we will be swaying up and down hills ere long. But what care I?—I will be on my honest palfrey! The coach may sink into a bog for aught I care, and the Personage with it.