It took thirty-three miles downstream for them to reach Pozsony. The river wound lazily through the plains, its waters gleaming beneath the dull October light. Along the banks, peasants labored, bent over their toil like figures etched into the earth. Fishermen hauled nets glistening with silver scales, and merchants on passing barges raised their hands in brief salutation as they drifted by. The countryside slid past in a slow procession, meadows giving way to low villages, mills creaking on the shore, and smoke rising faintly from distant hearths.

  Remy stood near the prow, leaning against the railing beside Jehan. The wind toyed with the strands of her hair that escaped her hood. Together, they watched their reflections ripple and distort upon the water’s restless surface.

  After a time, Remy spoke. “Jehan,” he said, his tone almost idle. “Can you swim?”

  She did not answer at once. Her eyes lingered on the water, studying its pale shimmer. “I would rather not drown,” she said at last. “Though I am hesitating whether it is appropriate for me to know how.”

  Remy’s lips curved faintly. Her answer was precisely what he had expected. In this age, even something as simple as swimming might be cause for suspicion. A woman who could swim invited whispers and those whispers could curdle into accusations, and accusations had a habit of catching fire. He could almost hear the mutterings about witch, temptress, and unholy. The logic of the age was absurd yet perilous to navigate.

  He glanced at her sidelong. “If you knew how,” he said mildly, “you might be accused of witchcraft.”

  Jehan frowned. “Then perhaps ignorance is safer.”

  “Safer, yes,” Remy said. “But not wiser.”

  He paused, letting the silence stretch between them. The river murmured beneath their feet, the sound of oars dipping rhythmically into the current. Then, with deliberate casualness, he asked, “Jehan, do you like bathing?”

  Her head turned sharply toward him. “What kind of question is that?” she demanded.

  Remy smothered a smile. “An innocent one.”

  She gave him a look halfway between disbelief and offense, as though he had spoken something indecent. Her lips parted, then pressed together again, restraining the lecture he could see forming behind her eyes.

  “Come now,” he said lightly. “Humor me. Do you like bathing?”

  “Why does it interest you whether I like or dislike bathing?” she countered.

  Jehan had the irritating habit of answering questions with more questions, though Remy secretly found the trait endearing. She called herself a peasant, yet her mind betrayed a keenness uncommon among her kind. It was not the polish of education but the clarity of instinct, of someone born without the dulling privilege of certainty. He often suspected her quickness came not from divine favor, as she liked to claim, but from necessity—the mind sharpening itself against hardship.

  He tilted his head. “Because,” he said, “you bathe when you can. Many people aren’t troubled by my spending coin on hot water because they assume I am a nobleman, and therefore inexhaustibly wealthy.”

  Jehan arched her brow. “You are wealthy, monsieur. You spent so much during our stay in Vienna that I wondered if you carried a magician’s pocket.”

  Remy gave a quiet laugh. “That is not my point.”

  “Then what is your point?”

  “That even without coin, one might go to the river and wash,” he said.

  She stared at him. “Would you go to the river, with all the filth floating in it?”

  He grimaced. “With all the feces and refuse? God forbid.”

  “Then that’s your answer,” she said promptly. “We can bathe because we have the means. The rest do not.”

  He regarded her with amusement. “Let us not speak of our means, but of theirs. I am not lecturing you for the pleasure of discourse, Jehan. I am explaining why bathing matters, for health, not for vanity.”

  She looked unconvinced. “Because it removes filth?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “It removes what I call bacterias, tiny creatures that cause rot and fever.”

  Jehan’s brow furrowed. “Creatures too small to see?”

  “Yes.”

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  She considered that, her expression somewhere between doubt and wonder. “Then God made strange beasts indeed,” she murmured.

  Remy smiled faintly. “Cleanliness prevents sickness. It is a virtue, perhaps not one written plainly in Scripture, but one worth practicing nonetheless.”

  Jehan crossed her arms. “Is that written anywhere in the Holy Book?”

  “Somewhat,” he replied. “It is said that Christ cleansed the Church by the washing of water with the Word.”

  She blinked. “Truly?”

  “Ephesians,” he said, gesturing vaguely.

  Jehan frowned in concentration, then reached into the small satchel she carried. From it, she withdrew the worn Bible she had taken to studying by firelight. Its edges were frayed, its pages stained from handling. “Show me,” she said.

  Remy sighed softly but complied. He opened the book with care and pointed to the passage. The words were Latin, of course, their meaning obscured to most. He read aloud, his voice low but resonant, the syllables rolling with practiced fluency. Jehan followed the words with her eyes, her lips moving soundlessly.

  When he finished, she hesitated. “Monsieur Remy,” she said slowly, “are you… permitted to speak the Word of God?”

  He looked up, faint amusement flickering in his eyes. “Of course.”

  “But you are not a priest.”

  “I am a soldier of Christ,” he replied. “Do not forget that.”

  She studied him for a long moment. Then, with a small nod, she returned her gaze to the text and began murmuring the Latin under her breath, repeating each line until she could pronounce it without faltering.

  Remy watched her quietly. There was a certain devotion in the way she studied, not the piety of a zealot, but the hunger of one who wished to understand the world that others only feared. Her lips moved over the strange syllables with care, tracing meaning like a pilgrim feeling the contours of a sacred relic.

  The boat rocked gently beneath them. The captain’s voice echoed from the stern, barking orders in his coarse Slovak. The crew shifted about, hauling ropes and adjusting the sail. A gull cried overhead, circling before gliding down to skim the water’s surface.

  Remy leaned back against the railing, eyes half-lidded. The motion of the boat, the creak of timbers, the slow churn of the river, it was all hypnotic, almost soothing. Yet his mind, restless as ever, refused to still.

  He found himself thinking of Jehan’s question, are you allowed to speak the Word of God? It was a curious notion, that speech itself might be forbidden to some and sanctioned to others. The Church, in its zeal to guard truth, had built walls around it so high that few could glimpse the light beyond. To Remy, such control had always seemed less about sanctity and more about fear. He had seen too much of both to mistake one for the other.

  Jehan closed the book and held it to her chest. “It’s beautiful,” she said softly.

  “What is?”

  “The language. The way the words sound, like prayer even when you do not understand them.”

  “Language is the vessel of thought,” Remy said. “And thought is what makes us human. That is why I study tongues. To speak another’s words is to walk briefly in another’s mind.”

  She tilted her head. “You sound like a priest when you say that.”

  “I am many things,” he said with a faint smile. “Priest is not one of them.”

  She smiled back, though faintly, as though uncertain if she was permitted to find humor in his words. Then she returned her gaze to the river.

  The landscape was changing now. The low fields gave way to the first signs of the city, wooden piers, smoke rising from brick kilns, the faint outline of fortifications ahead. Pozsony’s towers loomed in the distance, pale against the gray horizon.

  Jehan’s eyes widened slightly. “Is that it?”

  “Yes,” Remy said. “Pozsony. Though some will call it Pressburg. Names change and the places endure.”

  As the boat drifted closer, the air filled with new scents, smoke, tar, livestock, the faint tang of fermenting grain. Bells rang somewhere beyond the walls, their tones muffled by the wind.

  The crew stirred to life, securing ropes, shouting to one another as they prepared to dock. Remy straightened, adjusting his gloves. Jehan tucked the Bible carefully away.

  He glanced toward her once more. “Jehan,” he said quietly, “what you asked me earlier, about whether I am permitted to speak of God, remember this. It is not the Church that gives a man permission to believe, nor to speak. If one must ask to leave to serve the truth, then he serves men, not God.”

  She regarded him solemnly, her expression unreadable. “Then you do not fear the Church?”

  Remy’s eyes drifted toward the city ahead, its stone ramparts reflected darkly upon the river. “I have feared many things,” he said at last. “But not that.”

  The captain’s voice interrupted their silence, calling out orders as the vessel eased toward the dock. The ropes were thrown, caught, and tied. The hull shuddered as it kissed the wooden pier.

  Remy reached for his satchel and slung it over his shoulder. The horses remained in the boat, finding it bothersome to remove them. Jehan followed, careful not to trip on the uneven planks. Around them, the sailors moved with brisk efficiency, unloading crates and barrels.

  As he stepped onto the pier, Remy cast a glance back at the river. The Danube stretched behind them, a silver ribbon coiling through the heart of Europe, ancient, indifferent, eternal. He wondered, as he often did, how many souls it had carried to their destinies, and how many it had claimed along the way.

  Jehan joined him, her cloak fluttering in the wind. “It feels strange,” she murmured. “To move and yet always follow the same water.”

  Remy smiled faintly. “That is the nature of travel. The river flows, the world changes, yet we remain the same, until we realize we have not.”

  He turned toward the waiting city, where stone walls met sky and history seemed to breathe through every crack. The air smelled of bread and smoke, of sweat and metal, of life in its rawest form.

  “Come,” he said. “Let us see what this place has to teach us.”