The gorge north of Mount Alban echoed with the muted roar of the Silver. Overhanging trees dripped with spray and the stones of the River Road shone darkly. Bats flitted through shadows that had grown deep and cool with the sun's setting. Then larger shapes were among them, clowning in the spray, snapping bats out of mid-air and letting them drop, foxkin at play.
Their appearance preceded the clop of hooves, the jingle and groan of harnesses. Down the River Road came riders grimly upright in the saddle with the blood-shot eyes and strained faces of the hideously hung-over. One of them carried, drooping, a standard with the device of a serpent devouring its young, gold on black. A curtained horse litter followed. Beside it plodded an enormous draft-horse on whose back, hunched like a golden toad, rode Caldane, Lord Caineron.
His daughter Lyra followed him. Claiming that litter-travel made her sick (which it did, if she stuck a finger down her throat), she had been allowed to ride her little hill-pony. Consequently, at the end of this second day's travel, she was not only cold, tired, and hungry (as when was she not?) but also very saddle-sore. Nonetheless, how wonderful finally to be off on an adventure! She even took pleasure in feeling so much better, saddle-sores notwithstanding, than most of the Caineron Kendar. Once in Karkinaroth she had tried to pass on a stomach ache from too many sweets to her servant Gricki, without success. Father must know a very special trick to have so thoroughly inflicted the aftermath of his five day binge on his Kendar.
She bet that he wished he knew a trick as good, to get out of escorting Gran on this visit to the Women's Halls at Gothregor. He had better, Gran had said ominously, after incapacitating all her servants—except, of course, the Ear, whom nothing ever seemed to upset.
This would be their second night on the road, and they had come scarcely twenty-five miles south of Restormir. Gran complained of being jostled if they went faster. Besides, groggy Kendar kept falling out of the saddle, which Lyra had found hilarious, the first dozen or so times. By now, however, two-thirds of their company had been left behind and they had picked up a bare score of those Kendar who had been caught out on patrol when the weirdingstrom had swept down on them. The rest, it was hoped, would make their way home eventually. How long it would take some of those still at Restormir to recover from that terrible night's madness, no one could say. Lyra missed a dozen familiar faces in her father's retinue, without thinking much about it. She didn't know that they had quietly been slipped the white knife—and assisted in its use, if necessary.
Meanwhile, Gran had been hectoring Father for two days about the over-indulgence which had left them so short-handed, and about any other of his faults which she could bring to mind. Now, with sunset, she turned to his lack of foresight. If they had followed the New Road on the west bank, they would have been at the Jaran's Valantir by now, snug for the night. Did he want her to catch her death of cold out in this wilderness? Well? Did he?
Father hunched ever lower in the saddle, muttering.
Lyra nudged her pony closer, trying to eaves-drop, and ducked as Gran's foxkin Precious swooped close overhead, big ears cocked.
"What did you say, young man?" demanded Gran, peering at him through the leaf-patterned curtains of the litter. From behind her came the Ear's earthy chuckle. How could the two of them fit in so small a space? "You'd like to do what?"
Father started to answer, but a hiccup stopped him. He clutched wildly at his horse's mane, as if to anchor himself. Lyra wondered if that was also why he had put on every scrap of heavy gold he could wear. She knew for a fact, having seen it, that last night his servants had staked him down like a tent. His mount, the largest in the farm stable, laid back its ears, set its prognathous jaw, and plodded stolidly on.
They rounded a bend. The river divided around a wooded island, plunging down on either side in rapids and falls. Father straightened, staring from his superior height at something below still hidden from his daughter.
"My barge," he said thickly. "My beautiful barge," and spurred his mount into a heavy trot toward Mount Alban.