Three blasts on the north gate horn meant an approaching column under guard—neither a full cavalry charge nor a lone courier rider, both of which had their own distinct measures in Captain Dain’s garrison code. Jon Hale unbarred the heavy oak street door of the River Lantern and stepped out onto the frost-whitened porch boards, carrying a coiled hemp tether over his left shoulder and a two-gallon cedar bucket of warm salted water from the kitchen boiler in his right hand. Behind him, Elin appeared on the threshold with her canvas triage roll tucked beneath her arm, the bone-handled forceps at her belt clicking lightly against her hip, while Sister Oda stood by the window jamb keeping one eye on Sir Cael Ardent inside the taproom.
Down the narrow cobbled rise from the North River Gate came Captain Dain at the head of eight municipal watchmen, their ash pike-shafts wet with river mist and their wool cloaks caked to the knee with black marsh peat. Between the double file of pikes stumbled six prisoners wearing the grease-darkened boiled leather jacks and split-reed gaiters of Marshal Ors’s outer scouting companies. Their hands were bound before their belts with wet rawhide thongs, and every three paces the youngest of them—a raw-boned boy whose chin held more marsh mud than beard—pitched sideways against his neighbor as his torn boot-sole caught on the uneven river stone.
