The morning light on the river bridge was the pale, watery gray of skimmed milk, but the air above the water was already thick with the sulfur smoke pouring from the post house chimneys.
Jon kept to the shadowed eaves of the riverside tanneries, his boots moving without a sound across the damp gravel. Ahead of him, thirty paces along the cobbled causeway of the high bridge, the four oath guards marched in tight formation. Between their leveled partisans walked Lady Signe Lorr. Even surrounded by blackened steel and kettle hats, the magistrate did not lower her chin; her blue traveling hood billowed slightly in the river draft, her stride as steady and deliberative as if she were entering the royal assize court to hear an appeal of estate.
At the center pier of the stone bridge, jutting out over the foaming water of the mill race, stood the ancient chapel of St. Jude.
It was a squat, thick-walled sanctuary of dressed river granite, built two centuries before to offer travelers shelter and prayers before crossing the provincial boundary. Its high lancet windows were fitted with thick greenish bullseye glass, and its heavy oak doors were banded with rusted iron scrollwork.
