The ink froze twice in the iron well of Cale’s travel stand before the sun cleared the timber yard roof.
He thawed it by cupping the small horn pot in both palms, blowing his warm breath across the black crust until the frozen ring softened into liquid sludge. Down here at the foot of the hill lane, thirty yards from the cold stone troughs where the fort’s bedrock spring poured forty clean gallons a minute into the wooden buckets of Mere, the river wind carried the smell of wet sawdust, horse dung, and woodsmoke.
Reeve Dena Holt leaned against the corner of the trestle table, her heavy grey wool coat buttoned up to her throat.
“Vane’s pickets are watching from the lower mill dike,” she said quietly, nodding toward the line of willow trees along the river channel three hundred paces south. Three cavalrymen in dark green cloaks sat their horses under the bare branches, carbines slung across their saddle-bows. “They won’t cross the ditch while sixty men are dipping water with iron crowbars in their belts. But if they see you handing out parchment rolls with royal headers, they’ll call it a riot and ride the timber yard down.”
