The river was wide and brown and slow, and it smelled of mud.
Gerald led them along the bank for most of the morning, keeping inside the reeds. Faen walked behind him with one hand on Sir Edmund's arm, guiding him. The envoy stumbled now and then, but he didn't complain. He hadn't taken the blindfold off once.
Near midday, Gerald stopped.
Ahead, where the river bent, there was a small wooden jetty half hidden by willow trees. A flat barge was tied to it. It was long and low, covered in old sacks and tarpaulin, and there was a thin line of smoke coming from a tin pipe at the back.
"That's Agnes's boat," Gerald said quietly. "She worked with my uncle for twenty years. If anyone's still running the river, it's her."
[Hunter's Insight]
Nathan looked at the barge. There was one person on it. A woman, sitting at the back with a pipe in her mouth.
No thread.
"She's clean," he said.
Gerald let out a long breath. "Thank God."
---
