The notice was hanging from the river gate’s bar when Idrin came down the gatehouse steps at first light, on a cord of plaited grey leather that had been knotted twice round the iron, so that anyone lifting the bar would have to lift the paper with it.
Ysra had seen the rider. She told him so from the wall. One rider, on a dun horse with its near hind foot wrapped in sacking. A clerk’s coat under a traveller’s cloak. He had come up the river road before the bell, at a walk, and he had not stopped at the wicket. He had reached up from the saddle, very neatly, and hung the case on the bar, and then turned his horse on the track and ridden back the way he came, without once looking to see whether anybody on the wall was looking at him.
“He did not hurry,” said Ysra. “I counted the strides between the bar and the bend. Eleven. Men who are afraid of a wall hurry, Warden. He did not seem afraid of it at all.”
“Did you know him?”
“I did not know his back,” said Ysra, and went down the north stair.
