Cartographers Daughter / Season 1, Episode 5
Descent into Danger
The cart’s wheels screamed against the rocky descent, a grating howl that tore through the salt-heavy air as Inês clung to the splintered sideboard. Her fingers dug into the wood, slivers biting her skin, while Sebastião cursed under his breath, yanking the reins to keep the mule from bolting off the narrow path. Dust stung her eyes, blurring the jagged cliffs of Setúbal’s outskirts dropping to the sea below, where waves churned like a beast gnashing teeth. The rumble of hooves behind them hadn’t faded—those riders, da Gama’s men or worse, were still gaining, their shadows stretching long in the late afternoon sun that burned copper across the water. “Faster, damn you!” Sebastião growled, not at her but at the mule, his voice raw with grit. His knuckles were white on the reins, sleeves rolled up to show forearms roped with muscle from years of hauling smuggler’s loads. “We don’t make the docks, we’re meat for the gulls.” Inês didn’t answer. Her mind was tracing lines—escape routes, angles of descent, the way the path curved like a badly drawn chart. She could almost see it overlaid on parchment, each switchback a stroke of ink, the sea a smudge of indigo at the edge. Her father’s maps, tucked tight against her ribs under layers of linen and wool, felt heavier than...