The mud at Low Sike told the story before any man could speak.
Two hundred paces of churned river silt, marked by the deep, biting ruts of iron-tired drays and the narrow gouges of wooden handcarts, cut through the marsh sedge like an open wound. The willow branches along the bank were snapped at chest height where heavily laden shoulders had brushed past in the dark, and three lost sheepskin shoes lay half-submerged in the grey puddles of the gravel spit.
Jon stood on the rise above the crossing, a wooden shovel resting across his shoulder. He had spent the last hour since sunrise filling the deepest ruts with river gravel, trying to disguise the approach, but the sheer volume of forty-one civilian wagons and handcarts could not be hidden by one man with a spade.
From the shadow of the weeping willows at the water’s edge, a horse walked forward.
It was an imperial war-stallion, seventeen hands high, its grey flank marked with the Crown iron brand and its hooves wrapped in thick wool rags to muffle its step. The animal moved without a sound through the sedge, its breath rising in thin, rhythmic clouds into the chilly morning air.
