The avenue was cramped and crooked and crowded. The smell of spice-ginger and cinnamon and curry-masked the stench of the refuse spoiling in the gutters, and the din of jabbering voices filled the air with a constant drone as loud as it was maddening. High tenement buildings loomed along both sides of the street, their battered awnings and rickety second-story verandahs grazing the elephant's flanks as it ambled past. On many of the balconies stood hissing Mar, hurling small sticks at the poor beast and clapping their hands to drive its passenger from the city.

Atreus feigned indifference to their insults and kept his gaze fixed to the front. He was sitting in the crowded howdah on the elephant's back, with two Ffolk guards kneeling on the floor behind him. There were also a dozen riders struggling to clear the street ahead and another dozen riders bringing up the rear with Yago. Although the soldiers were dressed in the ceremonial livery of an honor guard, their surly bearing and wary watchfulness made plain that the only thing they were guarding against was Atreus's escape,

Atreus fought to hold his growing anger in check. As betrayed and insulted as he felt by Queen Rosalind's decision, he would gain nothing by venting his rage now. Better to wait a few clays, until his escorts' horses began to suffer in the hot muggy terrain of Doegan, then escape to another of the Five Kingdoms. Edenvale was not the only realm bordering the Yehimals and he had heard a person with money could buy anything in Konigheim.

A pair of teak window shutters slammed open beside the howdah, revealing the murky interior of a second-story apartment.