KirahThe Galgorian Channel: Western Jodesia
Water, water, everywhere. Agata Jodan was rather sick of it by now.
Her journey had taken the best part of the week, and this last leg had simply swapped the ocean for a long, straight canal. At least the liner from the Westerijk, now behind her on the other side of the Atlantic, had been large enough to stretch one’s legs and, crucially, in the direction away from the engines. This new vessel, which skated almost haphazardly along the canal, spluttering out great plumes of thick smoke as it did so, willingly sacrificed the dignity of hearing oneself think for speed. She looked out of the window at the flickering scenery with a mixture of nostalgia and resentment; Jodesia would always be home to her, but the marshy, flaccid surroundings had, in her time abroad in the Westerijk, become little more than anathema to her. It was, of course, a Jodesian mark of pride that they had conquered their bland, flat, wet landscape and built a nation from it, and that pride burned in her heart as much as in the next man, but you couldn’t build modern rails on pride. You needed solid earth for that; not endless mud.
As much as she had hated the crossing from the Westerijk, Agata now realised that she had taken the ability to stand on the sweeping deck for granted. While the view at sea wasn’t vastly superior (glittering blue as far as the eye could see as opposed to an opaque green-brown), the canal sprinter in which she was sitting, while luxurious for its kind, contained only three, cramped rooms: an office and private chamber for herself, and a glorified waiting room for her guard and attendant. The bedclothes in her chamber had remained undisturbed since she climbed on-board; she had merely sat behind the desk in her office and twitched, a letter addressed to her brother, no less than Keizer Maximor himself, lying before her, still sealed. It had been entrusted to her for safe-keeping, an honour no greater than that of delivery boy.
Her valet rapped on the door, and entered discretely upon her curt acquiescence.
“Excuse me ma’am,” he said, diffidently, “The pilot has just informed me that we will be arriving at Galgoria in four hours.”
Agata gave out a noise that was indecipherable as either ‘gah’ or ‘good’.
“Are you well?”
“Quite well.”
This, they both knew, was a lie. She had had a face like thunder upon receipt of the blasted letter that lay before her, and though the valet did not share her confidence in the same way that ladies’ maids patiently cowed to their every humour, he was quite capable of connecting cause and effect.
“I have prepared your bedroom, should you wish to rest,” in addition to competent, the valet was also discreet. Agata had not slept for the final part of the journey, perhaps naively hoping that time itself would accelerate if stared at angrily enough, and now her valet was indicating that her restlessness had become literal, and now showed. She stood up, and pocketed the letter, an irrelevant defence against the trustworthy and the humble, but an instinctive precaution nonetheless.
“Very well. Thank you, Willem.”
Lying up in bed, a small four-poster that sacrificed grandness for efficiency, she accepted a small glass of brandy from the valet, and released her hair from its sharp bun. He, in turn, wished her a good rest and asked if she was pleased to return to Jodesia, to which her reply consisted of just one syllable.
