The canvas surveyor’s pouch lay on the dry granite ledge between them, its oiled surface stained with dark streaks of marsh peat and chimney grease.
Jon knelt before it, his wool coat spreading across the flagstones. Beside him, Alden Bram kept his iron pry-bar grounded between his boots, his dark eyes never leaving Iven’s soot-streaked face. Sister Oda held the horn lantern close, tilting the yellow beam so that every seam and buckle of the pouch was clearly visible in the gloom.
“Empty it, Jon,” Bram grunted, his features fixed in a hard, suspicious line. “Watch for spring-needles in the hem. Those rebel scouts carry poisoned bodkins in their linings. A man in the border levies can lose his thumb to a prick no wider than a bee-sting.”
Jon opened the three horn toggles with careful, measured fingers. He turned the pouch upside down, spilling its contents onto the flat granite ledge.
There was no poison, no concealed dagger, and no pouch of gold coin.
A handful of rock-hard rye crusts tumbled onto the stone, accompanied by an unstoppered goat-leather water skin half-filled with brackish ditch water, a ball of tarred hemp string marked with distance knots every two paces, an iron compass with rusted legs, a horn ruler notched in barleycorns, and a rolled length of stiff, unbleached linen twelve inches wide.
