The marsh courier came to the lower gate in the middle of the morning, on a short-legged marsh pony that had been bred to walk on the Lamentine’s mud without sinking, and it carried a wooden box on a strap across its withers. The box smelled of reed and salt. Tallow knew the smell before he saw the box, because he had grown up with it in the gatehouse for a year, and it had got into the Register’s paper and into the ink, so that the first lines of the Hold’s book, when he held them to the light, had a faint green cast that no Chancery clerk had ever been able to explain.
The courier was a boy of perhaps sixteen with a wet cap and a face sunburned to the colour of brick. He dismounted at the gate’s foot, where the cart-ruts ended, and stood with the strap in both hands, looking up at the arch with the frank, unblinking suspicion of a child who has been sent to a house with a reputation.
“From Bardo Kell,” said the boy. “Reeve of the Lamentine. For the Hold’s clerk. He said to give it into the clerk’s hand and no other.”
