The rider came up the Lantern Ford road in the middle of the morning, when the sun had burned the mist off the marsh and left the causeway shining like a wet blade. Idrin saw him from the gatehouse arch. He saw the white flag first, a small square of linen tied to a stick and held upright by a man who clearly did not like holding it, and then the blue of the coat under it, a dull Census blue that had been faded by a great deal of sun, and then the horse, which was a good grey with a rump that had been expensively groomed for the journey.
“He has a spare,” said Ysra, from the gatehouse step, without looking round. “One horse under him and one led behind on a rope. He has been counting his horses for a league, I think, and the count has been bad.”
“Is the count bad for him or for us?” said Idrin.
“For him,” said Ysra. “It is the spare that worries him. The spare is carrying something under its saddle that is heavier than a rider’s kit.”
The rider stopped at the gate’s foot, where the cart-ruts ended and the Hold’s stone began. He did not dismount. He lifted the flag a little higher, as though the arch might be expected to bow to it, and then he looked up at the gate-slot in the timber, which was closed, and waited.
