A courier came up the river road in the last of the light, on the same grey horse and under the same green pennant that had brought the Chancellor’s compliments to the gate in the spring, and he left a parcel at the river bar and rode away again without waiting to be counted.
Idrin saw him go from the wall. He had come up to the parapet after the Chamber’s vote, because the Hold’s Watch had asked him to, and because he could not yet bear to sit still in the gatehouse with the box and its lid that never quite closed. The rain had stopped at dusk. The sky over the marsh had gone a clean pale green, the colour of a bottle held up to a window, and the reeds below the wall were black against it. Along the river road the courier’s grey horse went at a trot, very upright, with the pennant hanging limp on its lance, and then it turned at the first bend and was gone into the dark between the posts.
The parcel was on the bar when Brannoc lifted it, and the Watch brought it up the gatehouse stair to the table with the lamp held high in front of it, as though it might be dangerous. It was wrapped in oilcloth and tied with cord. The knot was a Chancery knot, neat and cramped, and the cord had been sealed at its end with a single blot of the Chancery’s…
