Bram Ash stood near the western arched portal of the tiered arena, his right arm resting in its clean black sling, his good left hand pressed against the cold granite coping of the low roof wall.
Down in the lower delivery courtyard, four country constables in dark blue coats were loading Halden Pell into the heavy iron transport wagon that would carry him over the Guard pass to the state castle at Highfield. The wagon was a grim, windowless box of heavy oak, sheathed in riveted iron plates, its double rear doors fitted with three massive level cross-bolts and two brass padlocks.
Pell offered no pushback. He shuffled up the iron step-ladder with a broken, stumbling gait. His velvet cloak dragged in the dust, his head wrapped in a coarse wool prisoner’s blanket to protect his delicate ears from the mountain wind. When the constables pushed him through the narrow door, he didn’t look back at the sun, nor at the crowds standing along the terrace walls. He crawled into the dark inside like a sick badger returning to a burrow, and when the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind him—CLANG-THUMP—the hollow, echoing iron echo seemed to swallow his existence whole.
