The Ruined Bridge was a long stone spine laid across the Sallow, and three of its arches had fallen into the water so that the crossing was a broken road that a man could walk if he minded his feet.
Idrin rode to the bridge-end with Ysra on one side of him and Korrin on the other, and the rain came down steadily on all three of them. It was not a hard rain. It was the fine grey kind that the marsh breeds at the end of a long dry spell, when the air has been waiting to give up its water and has finally decided to do it without fuss. It beaded on his coat and ran down the back of his neck. It had got into the reins and made them slippery, and his horse, a bony chestnut from the Hold’s own stable that Harrow had shod the week before, shook its head at every fresh drop as though it had been insulted.
He dismounted at the last of the causeway planks and gave the reins to Korrin’s boy, who had come up behind them on foot with a face like a shut door. Then he stood on the wet stone and looked at the bridge.
