The clatter of three dozen iron-rimmed military boots and the hollow strike of shod hooves against the paving flags shattered the morning quiet of Kilnstep. Lieutenant Vorn, a lean, sharp-featured officer in a dust-stained grey surcoat, reined his dun gelding to a halt in the center of the pottery square, his drawn steel shortsword resting flat across his handle knob.
Behind him, four mounted troopers fanned out to seal the entrances of the three converging lanes, while twenty spearmen lowered their ash shafts to the waist. They formed an imposing iron cordon around the stone well and the drying sheds. Their breastplates were scratched and weathered from the mountain road. Their eyes darted with skilled wariness toward the shuttered cottage windows.
Maud Venn didn’t stand up from her stone bench. She continued to peel her apple. That let the thin red ribbon fall into the wooden bowl beside her skirts. Only when the officer pulled his horse around to face her threshold did she look up, her grey eyes resting on his polished gorget with cool, unimpressed scrutiny.
‘You’re Maud Venn,’ Lieutenant Vorn declared. His voice carried the clipped, formal arrogance of a guard post officer addressing a highland peasant. ‘Mother to the bonded map maker Kezra Venn, who holds an unlawful royal survey compass and stands in rebellion against the Cairn Host.’
