Josserek's Journey And Sidir's View

The Winter Of The World.

Newkeep harbour smells of salt, smoke, tar and fish and there is the sound of gulls. No surprises there but we savour every such detail. Hiding in the water under a dock, Josserek thinks:

"Thus far we're on course..." (II, p. 17)

- the first indication that his "escape" from the ship has been part of a plan.

The harbour, at the mouth of the Jugular River, is lined with docks and warehouses, many in use. At anchor are schooners and luggers that keep to the coast, fishing smacks that remain in the Gulf and steamboats that go upriver. Thus, the Killimaraichan Skonnamor that has brought Josserek across the ocean is the only deep-sea ship. Newkeep shows lichenous walls, towers and battlements and the red and gold Imperial flag. Arvanneth, Josserek's destination, is a hundred miles inland. 

A wood-burning sidewheeler tug pulls three barges carrying barrels of fish and boxes of coastal trade goods upriver to Arvanneth so Josserek rides in a barge. 

They pass:

a barge train carrying rusting iron which must have come from the Northfolk/Rogaviki in exchange for manufactured goods and luxuries like spices;

rowing boats;

log rafts;

a patrol galley;

"...the gilt-arabesqued, many-oared yacht..." (p. 21) of an aristocrat (Josserek hears music and smells perfume);

canoes of short-legged, grass-skirted savages from the Swamps of Unvar emerging from creeks surrounded by reeds and cypresses.

The Jugular passes between cultivated plantations and orchards owned by Arvannethan Lords. There are workers' huts and henyards behind wharves. Leaving his barge at sunset, Josserek walks through chill fog along a paved highway, then steals a horse that carries him to Arvanneth where he sees towers of many centuries and shapes and the oily, rank, moat-like Lagoon. The causeway from the Grand East Highroad into the city has a fortified checkpoint at its far end. He, a pauper, would be unable to travel on the ferry from the inn at the end of the Newkeep road. Finally, he cannot swim across the Lagoon because it contains both carnivorous fish and disease-carrying filth. So he steals a skiff. 

He avoids Treasure Notch, where boats and warehouses must be well guarded, passes New Canal, dividing a wooded game preserve from a ruined mansion, other estates, Royal Canal, West Canal, the Westreach and vegetation running toward Unvar. Opposite all that, the canals enter the city with walls, turrets, portcullis, Imperial banner, cannon, catapults and troops at each entrance: Seagate, the Grand Bastion and the Little Bastion. By sunrise, Josserek reaches the Lairs where he is apprehended by three armed men.

Readers might realize that I have backtracked to collect details not noted until now. In Chapter III, Captain General Sidir, looking through a large window of the Moon Chamber on the fourth floor of the Golin Palace, sees:

Lake Narmu surrounded by the Gardens of Elzia;

the canals meeting at the Lake;

part of the five thousand year old Patrician Bridge joining the Palace to the Grand Arena and crossing the New and Royal Canals;

time-blurred marble facades with blotted friezes around a plaza;

major streets emptying into the square;

brown-bricked shops and tenements;

people, birds, dogs and wagons passing between booths displaying tawdry wares;

native militiamen but no occupying troops.

There are further details about the appearance and dress of the city-dwellers. Sidir faintly hears market place sounds and imagines the multitude of smells which Anderson lists.

Thus, a sensory overload.