Korrin rode out at first light with two Lowgate men who did not have any Hand’s trade and did not pretend to. One of them, Osper, had a mule with a bad temper and a sack of salt-fish across its back, and the other, a boy called Lamb who was too old to be called that, rode a grey pony bareback with a rope for a bridle and a knife in his boot. Korrin had told them to bring nothing that could be mistaken for a weapon. They had brought the knife and the rope and a loaf each, and he had not argued, because a Lowgate man who has been told to bring nothing will bring what he can carry.
The Lantern Ford causeway lay two leagues south-west of the Hold, inside the reach. The body could feel it. Korrin could feel it too, in the back of his skull, as a man feels a step that is worn down in the middle. The road ran past the Sallow Ford and then turned sharply south along the Lessary side of the water, and the stones of the causeway began where the trees gave out. He had walked those stones in the marsh raid and had not liked them then. He liked them less now that the Crown’s riders were on them.
