at the person she might have been, even more. She hugged Chan quickly. ‘Chan,
I’ve got to get free of this place.’ She took his hand and stood up. ‘Come, I
saw Lythande last night, I have to tell you what he said.’
They did not wait till evening to go to the governor’s palace, but set out
earlier, hoping to gain an audience with the prince and persuade him not to let
Satan be sold.
But no one else was waiting till evening to go to the palace, either. They
joined a crowd of people streaming towards the gate. Wess’s attempt to slip
through the throng earned her an elbow in her sore ribs.
‘Don’t push, girl,’ said the ragged creature she had jostled. ‘He shook his
staff at her. ‘Would you knock over an old cripple? I’d never get up again,
after I’d been trampled.’
‘Your pardon, citizen,’ she said. Ahead she could see that the people had to
crowd into a narrower space. They were, more or less, in a line. ‘Are you going
to the slave auction?’
‘Slave auction? Slave auction! No slave auction today, foreigner. The carnival
come to town!’ .
‘What’s the carnival?’
‘A carnival! You’ve never heard of a carnival? Well, ne’mind, nor has half the
people in Sanctuary, nor seen one neither. Two twelve-years since one came. Now
the prince is governor, we’ll see more, I don’t doubt. They’ll come wanting an
admission to his brother the Emperor – out of the hinterlands and into the
capital, if you know.’
‘But I still don’t know what a carnival is.’
The old man pointed.
Over the high wall of the palace grounds, the great drape of cloth that hung