He now counted on the Jew for fresh horses.
To reach him, he had to wade the Howrah River, less than a mile from where the burning ghats glowed dull crimson against the sky; the crowd around the ghats was the first intimation he received that the streets might prove less densely thronged than usual.

It was the Jew, beard-scrabbling and fidgeting among his horses, who reminded him that when the full moon shone most of the populace, and most of Jaimihr's and Howrah's guards, would be occupied near Siva's temple and the palace.
He left his own horses, groomed again, and gorging their fill of good, clean grain in the Jew's ramshackle stable place.

Joanna he turned loose, to sneak into any rat-hole that she chose.

Then, with their swords drawn--for if trouble came it would be certain to come suddenly--he and his nine made a wide-ringed circuit of the city, to a point where the main street passing Jaimihr's palace ended in a rune of wind-piled desert sand.

From the moment when they reached that point they did not waste a second; action trod on the heel of thought and thought flashed fast as summer lightning.
They lit through the deserted street, troubling for speed, not silence; the few whom they passed had no time to determine who they were, and no one followed them.