The air inside the Lantern stables was thick with the honest odors of cured timothy grass, damp dung, horse sweat, and harness oil rubbed into old leather.
Through the high hay-chute, gray daylight fell in a slanted column across the center aisle, illuminating the floating motes of dried clover dust. The bay mare stood in the third stall, her head drooping until her velvety muzzle nearly touched the split-ash manger. Her flanks, caked with dry river mud from the lower crossing, heaved with a slow, heavy rhythm that shook her ribs.
Jon unbuckled the throatlatch of her headstall, easing the iron snaffle from her teeth. The mare gave a low snort, shaking her ears, her tongue working against the corners of her mouth where the bit had left gray foam.
“Easy, girl,” Jon murmured, his palm resting on her warm, damp neck. “You brought him back through the marsh. Catch your breath before the next turn; nothing to carry until the second dispatch bells.”
Tobin stood on the other side of the stall, having hung his mud-stained travel coat over the stall divider. He held a wooden-backed dandy brush in one hand and a hoof pick in the other, but his shoulders sagged with bone-deep fatigue. His hair, dark and tangled from three days under a boiled-leather skullcap, was plastered to his forehead with dried perspiration.
