The boy who stood beneath the outer gatehouse archway could not have been more than eighteen years of age.
He was dressed in stiff, newly oiled harness leather that still smelled of cow tallow and saddler’s wax, with polished brass buckles that caught the dying rays of the evening sun like little lanterns. At his left hip hung a broadsword in a black leather scabbard—an honest, heavy piece of town-smith iron with a brass crossguard that looked as though it had been polished with river sand every night since he left his father’s workshop. In his right hand, he held a rolled sheet of heavy rag parchment, creased and stained with bacon grease along the folds.
He stepped across the threshold stones, his iron-shod boots ringing sharp and clear on the limestone flagstones.
Noll Vey walked out from the gallery vestibule to meet him. Noll’s plain stone feet came down with their hollow, steady clack-clack-clack, his square shoulders dusted with lime powder from the afternoon’s repair work on the pantry flue, his crooked limestone nose catching the amber light from the courtyard lanterns.
The boy stopped in the middle of the yard, his hand instinctively dropping to the hilt of his broadsword. His eyes went wide as he took in the seven-foot living stone figure before him.
