The dawn came up grey and freezing, without a break in the leaden clouds that hung two hundred feet above the bitter salt flats. A crust of brittle rime ice covered the wheel ruts along the turnpike, crunching under the hooves of the two heavy cart horses like broken bottle glass.
Tomas Reed checked the harness buckles on the near horse, his fingers stiff inside his split-leather gloves. He had oiled the leather traces the night before by the kitchen hearth. But the sub-zero frost had already frozen the straps into rigid, unbending hoops that resisted the tongue of the brass buckles. He braced his boot against the horse’s flank. He hauled the belly-band taut until the third notch caught, then tapped the iron pin home with the heel of his hand. Behind the cart, Olla and Nessa secured the canvas tilt with double-hitched manila ropes. That made sure the lead sample cylinders, the surveying chains. The master iron ledger were cushioned against the bone-jarring shaking of the frozen road.
At the crossroads where the memorial turnpike met the sunken ditch road, a double barrier of iron-spiked chevals-de-frise had been dragged across the gravel. Six mounted yeomanry officers in scarlet tunics and polished black dragoon boots sat their horses behind the timber spikes. Their carbines were held unbooted across their saddle pommels. Between them stood the Provost-Marshal of the March, a grey-whiskered colonel named Kestler, his gold-hilted cavalry saber buckled over a heavy broadcloth cape trimmed with wolf fur.
