The law failed to seize the lead plates. Then, the aristocracy turned to its oldest, most vicious weapon: private steel.
The following afternoon, a lone rider trotted into the center of High Redoubt on an amazing black Andalusian warhorse with braided mane and gold-trimmed stirrups. The rider was Sir Vane, known throughout the Western March as the Silver-Stitch. A legendary duelist who had fought fourteen fatal encounters of honor without sustaining a single scratch.
Sir Vane wore a doublet of charcoal-grey velvet stitched with silver thread, kidskin riding boots that reached to his thighs. A sweeping beaver-fur hat pinned with an egret plume. At his left hip hung twin matched dueling dress swords with gold-trimmed basket handles and three-edged Toledo steel blades.
He drew rein before the claims tent. He looked down his high-born nose at the crowd of commoner veterans who were boiling broth over an open kettle.
“Where is the back-door porter who calls himself a clerk?” Sir Vane called out, his voice clear, melodic, and dripping with cultivated contempt. “Where is the peasant who dares to drag the noble name of Marshal Brand through the ditch mud?”
Tomas Reed stepped out of the tent flap. He carried a bucket of clean water and a bundle of dry firewood. He didn’t look like a champion. His grey wool jacket was patched at the elbows, his trousers were stained with dry red clay. His left wrist was bound in stiff calfskin.
