The morning air in the market square was thick with the greasy reek of sulfur, wet lime, and horse sweat. The river mist hung low over the timber gables, turning the cobblestones into a slick, black skin of greasy mud that reflected the gray light of dawn.
Jon slipped through the narrow alley between the chandler’s workshop and the saddler’s yard, having completed the ward transition from the South Cistern conduit with his coat collar turned up to hide the gray stone dust still clinging to his ears from the crawl. Across the muddy expanse of the square, where market stalls usually displayed winter cabbage, dried peas, and river pike, three heavy four-horse wains stood backed up against the raised timber porch of the royal post house.
Town carters in mud-spattered frieze smocks were heaving stout oak firkins from the wagon beds, their shoulders straining under the two-hundred-pound casks. Each barrel was banded with heavy iron hoops and marked with two broad slashes of white slaked lime across the bung-stave to denote imperial ordnance.
On the post house steps, standing beneath the carved heraldic lion of the Imperial Courier Service, was Sir Cael Ardent.
The knight had exchanged his formal gray traveling cloak for a tight-fitting coat of boiled black leather reinforced with steel ribs. He wore no helmet, his fair hair damp from the river fog, but his broadsword was belted high on his left hip, the gilded wire grip resting within an inch of his fingers. Flanking him…
