The guard post toll-house at Checkpoint Three smelled of wood smoke, roasting pork, and sour ale.
A large iron stove in the corner glowed cherry-red through its draft-grate, streaming dry, luxurious heat that made the mud on Tomas’s boots steam and crack into gray crusts. On the oak sideboard sat half a roasted pig. It was flanked by stone flagons of imported wine and loaves of fine white wheaten bread. Food that had never paid a sanitary levy, food brought down the north raised stone road for the guard post officers.
Court guard Orso Vance sat behind a massive desk of carved walnut, his boots propped up on the corner, picking his teeth with a sharpened goose quill.
Around the room, five guard post guards leaned against the plastered walls, their short hunting swords belted over their doublets, watching Tomas and Nessa with lazy, contemptuous amusement. Outside, the rain beat a steady tattoo against the leaded glass windows. The shouts of cold wagon drivers rose from the muddy turnstile.
Tomas stood three paces from the desk, his ash-wood pack frame resting square upon the floorboards. He had washed the marsh mud from his hands at the pump outside. His gray wool coat was brushed clean. On his left wrist, the calfskin brace was freshly buckled, holding the scarred tendon firm.
