The two-wheeled border gig, drawn by a shaggy northern mountain pony whose hooves threw up clods of frozen road gravel, deposited Tavi at the foot of the Black Crag timber watchtower twenty minutes before midnight.
The watchtower was built like a castle. It was heavy, square-hewn red cedar logs notched into a massive dry-stone granite foundation that anchored it against the winter gales. The wind up here tore across the bare rock with a ferocious, howling fury, smelling of crushed juniper needles, clean snow, and seasoned birch smoke from the stone chimney.
Tavi scrambled up the rough-hewn timber stairs. It grabbed the leather dispatch pouch tight against his ribs. He threw his weight against the studded oak door. Then, it swung inward with a heavy creak, admitting him into a room filled with the crackle of a roaring stone hearth and the clean scents of saddle soap, hot cider, and very thirsty paper.
Standing by the broad north-facing map table was Cira Vey.
She was taller than Len, with the same straight, narrow nose and the same watchful, slate-gray courier eyes. But her dark hair was cropped short behind her ears. She wore the dark green wool tunic and brass-buttoned vest of a Territorial Postal Director. Spread across the table were open route registers, three brass sextants. The red-taped royal dossier proving beyond doubt that the southern war engine had been dismantled eleven years ago.
