The four lathered black coursers stood blowing clouds of white steam into the noon damp of the market square, their iron shoes scraping against the wet granite cobbles around the town well. No outrider blew a trumpet; no footman called out the titles of the Crown. In the heavy quiet between the dripping eaves of the guildhalls and the timber porch of the River Lantern Inn, only the creak of the coach’s thick leather thoroughbraces and the slow click of Roric Flann’s noon clock-wheel in the bridge tower marked the hour.
Jon Hale stepped off the bottom rung of the gatehouse stair and walked at an unhurried publican’s pace to the edge of the River Lantern porch, wiping his palms on his clean canvas apron so his ten white finger rings remained in plain view while his coat cuff covered the three bands on his right forearm. Across the cobbles, Sister Oda stood on the stone steps of the St. Jude alms-porch with her hands tucked into her grey sleeves, and beside the market cross, Lady Signe Lorr waited in her dark blue velvet Assize robes with her leather dispatch portfolio held closed under her left arm.
The brass handle of the carriage door turned from within. The folding iron step dropped with a greased metallic clack, and Special Provost Warden Brecht stepped down onto the cobbles of Harth.
