Rainwater dripped in a steady, measured patter from the cedar shingles of the livery eaves into the stone horse trough as Jon Hale crossed the courtyard cobbles. The morning mist off the river tasted of wet willow bark, woodsmoke from Dunstan Harl’s early bakehouse ovens on South Lane, and the cold iron damp that always clung to Harth at the opening of the ninth day of Flood Month. Inside Jon’s coat pocket, the dented fourteen-inch lead cylinder from the fourth day at the weir pressed cold and heavy against his ribs, a solid bar of dead metal that had outlived the boy who carried it.
Jon put his scarred palm against the rough, tarred oak plank of the stable half-door and pushed it open without rattling the iron ring-latch.
Inside, the five-stall livery barn was warm with the thick, honest heat of living beasts, crushed oats, fresh rye straw, and neat’s-foot oil rubbed into supple harness leather. A horn lantern hung from a pegged oak beam above the center aisle, throwing amber light across the stalls where two farmer’s dray mules munched their morning hay and Tobin’s four-year-old bay mare rested her strained hind hock in deep straw beside the inn’s spare cart mare.
