59

Early next morning, shortly before dawn, you meet with Karvas and Sainus and go to collect your horses from the stable. As you mount them, the old man bids you good luck and he gives the Prince a pouch containing 50 Orla, a sum that could prove useful during the journey to Seroa.

Dawn breaks as you leave Sainus’ house, and you hear a bell which signifies that the night curfew has now come to an end. You ride along the waking streets of the north quarter and enter a broad avenue that leads directly to the east gatehouse. The guards posted here are opening the great east gate as you approach, and you gallop through the widening gap and out onto the plain beyond.

The sun shines brightly all day and you make good progress along the trail that heads due east towards the River Sero. By nightfall you have covered more than 75 miles and have reached the tiny village of Xaia. Moored at its wooden jetty is a large riverboat. This grand vessel is brightly illuminated by hundreds of coloured lanterns that are fixed to its masts and deck rails. You tether your horses to a post and then hurry along the jetty to where a thin man in a long black coat is seated at a table. He is counting out Orla and stacking them neatly in piles of twenty. Karvas asks if he may purchase two tickets to Seroa, but the man shakes his head and tells you that all the tickets have been sold. The riverboat sails within the hour and every place aboard has been purchased.

‘If you’re lucky, you may be able to persuade a couple o’ passengers to sell you their tickets,’ he says, cheerlessly. ‘Them that’s not already aboard are over there, drinking their fill at the Crown & Bugle Inn.’ He scratches his stubby chin and then points a bony finger towards a ramshackle tavern perched on the riverfront.

If you wish to go to the Crown & Bugle Inn, turn to 256.

If you wish to try to bribe the ticket seller to let you go aboard the riverboat, turn to 202.