“Give the mare to the stable-lad and bring the dispatch bag straight to the guard-table, Tobin!”
The harsh, gravelly voice did not belong to Corporal Morvath. Stepping out through the side court doorway ahead of the corporal was Field Warden Brecht himself—his heavy iron-grey cloak buckled to the chin, his steel-hilted broadsword riding high on his hip, and his small, colorless eyes fixed not on the shivering eighteen-year-old rider, nor on the blown horse, but directly on the lead-lined brass cylinder hanging at Tobin’s thigh.
All day at the North Bridge gatehouse, Lady Signe Lorr had kept Warden Brecht pinned to an oak trestle-table over forty pages of disputed forage tallies. Now, released at dusk and furious at discovering that the west-hundred refugee carts had been diverted away from the West Quay granary under an Assize warrant during his absence, the War Ministry warden was looking for the one instrument that could override every civil magistrate in the county.
In the fifth and seventh lives, Jon had seen that lead-lined brass cylinder only after it had been broken open on the fourth night—when Warden Brecht had marched down into the River Lantern cellar with four Oath Guards, read out the royal cipher inside, and claimed direct War Ministry command over the subterranean Furnace damper.
