The carts came back through the arch in the afternoon, and Mireille stood at the gatehouse window and watched them come with a Chancery letter in her palm that had been brought under flag from Sallowmere through the Lessaran line less than an hour before.
She had not expected the carts to come back. She had expected the marshal to hold them on the road as a bargaining piece, much as a Chancery holds a boundary post until the other side has signed for the right to pass it. But Orrow had ordered them turned round at the chalk and driven back up the slope, slowly, under the eyes of the whole sitting line, and now they came up the Lessary Road at a walking pace, six carts in a row, their tarpaulins still lashed tight and their mules bowed under the weight of the harness. Behind them, a single company of Lessaran foot marched in good order, carrying no weapons on its shoulders. Mireille counted them. There were fifty. They halted at the chalk and stood there while the carts rolled through the arch, and nobody in the company looked at the Hold’s wall as though it were a thing he meant to take.
