The Brigadier had a much easier time entering Carrow.

     The border between Carrow and the Empire was guarded by forts on either side at every road and rail crossing, but the crossings themselves were open and he was able to just walk across with a group of merchants and travellers visiting relatives. He wasn’t even searched for contraband, even though he knew that a great deal of opium crossed the border from Carrow into the Empire, with gold and silver crossing in the other direction. The border was over a thousand miles long, after all, and there were plenty of isolated spots where this kind of illicit trade could take place. Only a stupid smuggler would use one of the busiest roads.

     The road was certainly busy today, he noted, with a long column of people passing him, going from Carrow into the Empire, and this puzzled him. The gossip he'd heard from talking to other travellers told him that Carrow was winning the war. Virtually all the Tweenlands were now in Carrow hands, and only a massive series of trenches, backed by artillery, had prevented the invading army from taking Barcelowe, one of the last large towns before reaching Marboll itself. Barcelowe had, evidently, been wracked by a massive earthquake some weeks earlier, but although the Radiants were all over it, with storms and cursings afflicting the defenders, there had been no earthquakes since. Perhaps the Radiants could only cause one earthquake in each place, the Brigadier mused. If so, it would be the first bit of good news he'd heard in a long time.

     So if Carrow was winning, why were so many people leaving? A casual observer would think that they were the ones fleeing a conquering army. A brief conversation with a Carrow family a couple of days before, in a tavern just west of the border, had given him the answer.

     “We're looking for a better life,” the man of the family had told him. He had been a big man, brawny and muscular, with hard calluses on his hands. The Brigadier took him for a blacksmith, which would explain why he hadn't been pressed into the army. Smithing was a reserved occupation, but that would mean that the Carrow government wouldn’t have just let him go. He must be on the run.

    “There’s no work in the Westlands," the blacksmith added. "No food either, unless you can pay in gold or silver. We’ve had enough. I've got a family to feed, a child to raise.” He’d indicated the half raised donkey sitting beside him at the common room table, trying to pick up hay from the trough sitting on the floor beside it with a hand whose hoof had only partially divided into broad, stubby fingers. It had looked at the Brigadier with its stupid, animal eyes while chewing, with broken strands of straw falling back to the floor around its feet, and its tail had flicked occasionally to drive away the flies that buzzed around its rear end.

     “I'd heard that things were bad in Carrow,” the Brigadier had said. “Helberion took all your best farming lands fifty years ago, left you with nothing but rocky scrublands to grow crops on, but I had no idea they were that bad.”

     “They never used to be. Used to be we got by. Things were never easy, but we got by, but there's been a draught for two years now. Nothing will grow, even in those tracts of good land we've got. There's no pasture for the cattle, no grass for the sheep. Goats are the only livestock we've got these days, and although they’ll eat almost anything, there's precious little meat on their bones.”

     “But surely someone such as yourself, whom I can see just by looking at you is no stranger to hard work, must be able to buy food.”

     He shook his head. “Back when I was the village blacksmith I could pretty much name my own price. I could afford to buy food then, but they took me and put me to work in a munitions factory. Essential war work, they said, but they paid us chickenfeed. Couldn't afford to buy more than a handful of beans a day. That's why we're leaving. They say there's work in the Empire for an honest man with a strong back. Well paid work. We're going to see if it's true."

     “I'm sure that better days lie ahead for Carrow. They say the war with Helberion is going well. When Nilon has won back all the lands his grandfather ruled, there’ll be food and work for everyone.”

     “So they say, but we can't wait around to see if it's true. We need food now, not six months from now. I got a child to raise. Takes two people to raise a child. I can't leave him like this, half man, half horse. Unable to do the work of either. If we'd known things were going to be like this, we’d have waited until things got better before adopting him, but now we're here...” He’d looked at the poor creature, who had seemed to know that they were talking about him and had hung its head in miserable shame, still chewing straw. The blacksmith had reached over to ruffle its mane. “Easy, lad. Nobody blames you. You just eat your supper.” The creature had nuzzled him gratefully with its long horsy head and struggled to pick up another handful of hay with its clumsy, almost useless fingers.

     The Brigadier was almost certain that the blacksmith had only dared to say such things because he was safely out of Carrow. Since crossing the border, the Carrowmen he'd talked to had been careful and reticent. Clearly fearful of being branded disloyal and treacherous if their words reached the wrong ears. The Brigadier guessed that bad things happened to people against whom such accusations were made. Usually, it wouldn't even matter if there was no proof. The accusation itself was enough, and one way to lessen your sentence was to accuse others. There were certainly enough guardsmen around, keeping a careful watch over everything that happened. Questioning everyone as though they were conducting a criminal investigation. They were even in the boarding houses, watching the people going to and from the border while pretending to enjoy a glass of ale. The Brigadier supposed that, in a country where food and work was so scarce, one of the few certain ways of making a living was to join the guard.

     He was careful to do or say nothing to attract attention, therefore, and whenever a guardsmen asked him what his purpose was in the country, which happened at least two or three times a day, he would say that he was on his way to visit relatives in Bonewell.

     “How does a citizen of the Empire have relatives in Bonewell?” one particularly unpleasant guard asked him one day as he was negotiating the trade of his exhausted horse with a fresh one owned by the West Carrow Carriage Company.

     “My cousin Wilson married a Carrow woman,” he replied while examining the new horse's teeth. “She couldn’t bear to leave the country she loved, so he came to Carrow to live with her.” He turned to the company man. “This horse has bad teeth. If you expect me to trade my fine beast for this wretched nag, you’ll have to give me three silver kings.”

     “You’re the one who wants to trade,” The company man answered back. “Take it or take your business elsewhere.”

     “You have a strong Helberion accent,” The guard accused. “Someone might think you were a spy.”

     The Brigadier laughed. “Everyone tells me I have a Helberion accent. I come from Advale, this is an Advale accent. If I were Helberian, I'd be going in the other direction, out of Carrow as fast as possible.” He turned back to the company man. “Two silver kings.”

     “You already have my answer.” The company man was staring at the Brigadier’s horse enviously, though. It was a fine beast, worth at least five kings more than the horse he was offering in exchange, and a willingness to take time haggling would make the Brigadier look less suspicious to the guardsman.

     “What proof do you have that you have relatives in Bonewell?”

     “You have my word,” replied the Brigadier. “My word has always been considered good enough.”

     “Good enough in Kelvon, perhaps, but not here. There are Helberian spies and saboteurs everywhere, and your accent is clearly Helberian no matter what you say. I think we should take you in for questioning. Find out who you really are and what you're doing here.”

     “What I'm doing here is trying to keep this villain from robbing me blind. One king and twelve shillings and that’s my final offer. Take it or I really will take my business elsewhere.”

     “You speak like an aristocrat,” said the guard, scratching at his stubby chin. “An aristocrat would have a carriage and retainers, but you travel alone. More cause for suspicion.”

     “Everyone talks like this is Advale. It's just how we talk. Here...” He reached into an inside pocket and produced a small envelope. “This contains a letter from my cousin Wilson. It proves I'm telling the truth.”

     He handed it across and the guard opened it warily, looking inside. Then he tucked it into his own pocket. “Very well, traveller. Finish your business here and be on your way.” He turned and walked away, towards two other guards who were questioning a caravan of wool merchants.

     “You bribed him!” said the company man in astonishment. “How did you know he wouldn't arrest you and take everything you've got?”

     “It was a bribe he was after all along. He could see I had money and he wanted some of it. He’d have been more likely to arrest me if I hadn’t done it. Besides, if he'd tried to arrest me , I would have just killed him, and his friends, and then you would have given me this miserable nag and ten kings on top. So are you going to take my offer or not?”

     The man stared at him with wide, fearful eyes. “One king, twelve shillings,” he said, fumbling for his purse with trembling fingers. “Take it and go! I want you away from me. If they go after you, and remember that I was talking to you...”

     “I’m sure you're an honest man with a good reputation,” said the Brigadier taking the coins.

     The company man laughed bitterly. “You think that matters? Nobody's safe these days. Get away from here! Get away from me!”

     The Brigadier was glad to take the advice. Bribing guardsmen was, indeed, a dangerous business, and the man would know that the notes in the envelope had been only a small part of the wealth he was carrying. He needed to be away from here. He switched his saddle onto his new horse, therefore,  climbed aboard and rode out of town, spurring the horse into a fast gallop as soon as he was out of sight.

☆☆☆

     The Carrow countryside was parched and arid. What crops there were were yellow and stunted and the cattle were thin and emaciated; their bones making angular lumps in their hides. His horse raised a large cloud of dust behind him as he rode it fast along the road, the other side of which was still being travelled by families of Carrowmen visiting their relatives, all of whom, coincidentally, seemed to live in the direction of the border with Kelvon. No wonder they could raise such a large army, he thought to himself. They didn't even need conscription! All they needed was to promise an escape from this.

     The road led to Treeds, a large industrial city from which smoke rose incessantly from thousands of factory chimneys, blocking out the sun for miles downwind. A number of railway tracks ran in parallel beside the road for the last twenty miles, carrying goods trains that puffed more smoke and steam into the air as they pulled cargo wagons laden with coal and ores into the city and manufactured goods out of it. The wildlife here had to deal with pollution as well as drought and there was very little healthy greenery to be seen as the Brigadier walked beside his horse, giving it its hourly rest.

     It was a depressing sight and the Brigadier felt his spirits sinking as a faint breeze blew foul chemical stinks over and around him. How do people live in a place like this? he wondered. True, Helberion also had industrial cities, but at least his country also had a king who cared about his people and tried to compensate the ones who lived in places like this with fair wages and good pensions. Here, it was as if the city and the government were competing to see who could crush the spirits of the common people first. This is a hellish place! the Brigadier thought. This whole country is a nightmare!

     He had originally intended to circle around the city, but the dozen parallel railway tracks on which several stationary trains were parked formed an impenetrable barrier to his left, and on the other side of the road ran a canal whose pollution-stained waters were green with algae and drifting with small items of litter. There was no place outside the city to cross either of them, so he had no choice but to enter the city and pass through as quickly as possible. He didn't even intend to stop to eat. It was still early in the day, and he hoped to get through, out the other side and stop for the night at the first farmhouse with horses he came across.

     Unusually, the city had no wall. If it had ever had one it must have been dismantled as the city grew to provide raw materials for new buildings. Treeds was to the west of the country, far from the border with Helberion. The Empire had never shown any inclination to take Carrow by force, and no other country in this part of the world was large or powerful enough to do so. Treeds had never had to fear an invading army, therefore, and so sprawled across the country like a pile of bricks tipped out from an overturned builders cart.

     The buildings even looked like bricks, the Brigadier noted. Tiny windows and virtually no ornamentation other than the occasional line of different coloured brick half way up a wall as if the builders had felt obligated to provide some decoration but were just too dispirited to do any more than the absolute necessary. And as if that weren't enough, a layer of sooty grime lay over everything and a faint grey haze filled the very air itself, making the Brigadier fear for his lungs. With all this to contend with, therefore, the butterfly bushes that seemed to grow out of every tiniest fissure in the brickwork seemed like miracles to him. A reminder that, no matter what insults mankind inflicted on the world, nature would always find some way to survive.