Cartographers Daughter / Season 1, Episode 4
Descent to Setúbal's Secrets
The cart lurched hard to the right, wheels grinding over unseen stones, and Inês clutched the splintered wooden bench beneath her, her knuckles pale against the dark grain. Sebastião’s muttered curse hissed through the damp air as he yanked the reins, urging the mule onward. The beast snorted, its hooves clattering unevenly on the rutted track leading down to Setúbal’s harbor. Salt stung her lips, carried on the wind that whipped through the canvas tarp half-covering their cart, and beyond it, she could hear the distant crash of waves against the shore, relentless as a heartbeat. Her father’s maps, rolled tight and bound with twine, pressed against her thigh beneath the folds of her skirt, their weight a constant reminder of the danger trailing them. The astrolabe, cold and heavy in the leather pouch at her waist, bumped against her hip with every jolt. She could still hear her father’s last breath, the rasp of fourteen north, thirty west scraping out of him like a blade on stone, and now, with every passing mile, the hoofbeats of pursuit seemed to echo louder in her mind than the sea itself. “Riders ain’t slowed,” Sebastião growled, his voice low, barely audible over the creak of the cart and the wind. He didn’t turn to look at her, his broad shoulders hunched over...