She was in the back of a wagon- how had her captors managed to get past the guards that patrolled the estate? Was someone from the estate involved? Was Guiseppe? What other explanation could there be for his having been absent? Or- had his captors hurt him? Even killed him? Perhaps they were going to kill her! Take her to some remote place and bury her alive, or throw her into the ocean, borne to the bottom by chains-
Stop! Stop! Control yourself! You don't know who your captors are or what they want with you. They could just as easily be Father's men, come to kidnap you and take you back to Athens. If they meant to kill you, they would probably already have done so!
So telling herself, she tried to calm herself and lay quiet, to accept the bump and sway of the wagon and the wagon itself as the entirety of her world for the present.
The journey, she surmised, must have taken a full day. The air seemed to be growing cool once more. Soon there were muffled sounds coming from all around her, and she knew that they had arrived at Port Haven.
Rough hands grabbed her cocoon, dumped her ungently into the back of some sort of barrow, laid her over with several layers of something heavy and suffocating, and then she was moving once more, first along what sounded like a wooden boardwalk, a sharp turn then, followed by a steep decline. She could hear the faint groans of boats rubbing against their berths-
-they suddenly stopped, the barrow was set down, and some sort of argument ensued, only half of which she could hear.
' . . . doesn't matter. No one enters or leaves port from dusk 'til dawn. I don't care who told you that you have clearance to depart. My orders came directly from the Castellan himself. Yes, I see that you only carry netting! My orders stand! You may take your netting and hold up for the night, but you are not setting foot on the docks! If you protest further, you'll be spending the night in the old gaol! It is still quite serviceable, you know, and every bit as uncomfortable as the old stories tell of it.'
She felt herself wheeled back up to the boardwalk, and then a long muffled discussion ensued between her captors. Eventually the barrow began moving once more and she was wheeled for a long distance, down the main road, to the left, then down what to her ears sounded like a narrow alleyway.
A shot rang out! Two more! A scuffle ensued, during which her barrow was overturned and she was flung headlong to the ground, leaving her with the taste of blood in her mouth. Then, a pair of strong arms hoisted her into the air and over a broad shoulder. Her heart quailed as she realised it wasn't Roman.