Korrin rode the Caul road with twelve Hard Hands and two carts, because the cord had been found every week since the thaw and this week he wanted to see where it ended.
He did not like riding. He had walked the Caul road for nine winters, with a spear on his shoulder and his boots in the mud and his eyes on the reeds, and he had never once trusted a horse in the marsh-mist. But the Regent had said, in the Watch-room that morning, in the plain voice he had been using since the spring, that the Hold would need to know how far the cord went before the Survey could be sent to walk the boundary. He had said it without any Form at all. And Korrin, who had never in his life thanked a man with a clause in it, had found that he had nothing to say to that except, “I’ll find it,” which was not a thank-you, and was all the Regent seemed to want.
So they rode. The mules did not like the mist any better than he did. They walked with their ears back and their heads low, and the carts rocked on the flat wheels through the ruts, and the Hard Hands sat on the tailboards with their spears across their knees and said nothing, because Korrin had told them to say nothing, and they had been brought up in a school where the order was obeyed.
