At the foot of the inner outer gatehouse stairs, Captain Hest Vale halted the detail to finalize the composition of the check party. The morning sun was now well above the crags, reflecting off the frosty crenellations of the keep, but in the shadowed passage beneath the second gate, the cold was damp and piercing.
“Marn Vance and Tella Corve will remain in the outer ward with the handcart and the bulk supplies,” Hest announced. He pointed her gauntleted finger at the two basin carriers. “They may use the wagon drivers’ warming room beside the stables. But they won’t pass the inner gate under any circumstances.”
Kezra turned to Fellis Dain and Yseld Arken, who stood waiting with their equipment cases slung across their shoulders.
“Fellis carries the wooden sighting rule, the ruddle chalk, and the main three-point sighting slate,” Kezra said to Hest. She left no room for debate. “His left arm is braced. But his right hand is the steadiest drafting hand in the highlands. I don’t take a single angle without his proof.”
Hest glanced at Fellis’s ash-wood splints, noting the careful, unrushed way the nineteen-year-old ropewright held the three-foot wooden ruler under his good right arm. “The boy may enter. And the guide?”
