The northern mule was a rawboned grey mare with white sweat-crust dried stiff across her withers, her ears flopping in rhythm with her tired, plodding walk.
Tied to the brass cheek-piece of her bridle was a split piece of ash wood notched with seven square grooves—the personal tally stick of Master Joric Thane’s upland freight division. The rider who swung down from the wooden saddle was a wiry young man in a grease-stained wool coat, his boots caked in grey chalk from the limestone gap road. He didn’t ask for the headman or the village court guard. He unhooked a brass canteen from his saddle-bow, dipped it straight into the oak bucket sitting on the well curb. Then he took three long, noisy gulps before wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
“Kezra Venn?” the courier asked, his eyes scanning the three women walking across the green.
“I’m Kezra Venn,” she said, angling her right ear toward him as she stopped two paces from the curb.
The boy didn’t bother with formalities. He reached inside his heavy wool coat and pulled out an oilskin packet wrapped in tarred hemp twine. He was sealed at the flap with a thumb-sized blob of green factor’s wax. Across the front, written in the dark, purple-black dark oak-ink used by the trade ring counting houses, was a single clear line. To the Approved Hand of Kezra Venn, Kilnstep. Report of Initial Hearing, Case Arken-7.
