Chapter 10: The Toll House

By morning the gold was gone.

I stood at the guest house mirror with a candle, and I looked at hazel eyes and a pale, ordinary face.

Behind me Torin pulled on his boots, and his own face said he had seen what I saw.

"It was there," he said.

"I know."

"It was there, Rhona."

"I know. I'm not mad."

"I didn't say you were." He stood and put a hand at the back of my neck, warm and heavy.

"We'll keep it between us until we know what it is."

"Torvi?"

"Torvi is the exception to every rule."

I leaned into his palm for one second.

Then a scout pounded on the door, and the day began without us.

"The Pass Men moved their stores," he said breathless. "The old toll house on the high road. Forty crates, and they're loading mules."

"Where are the mules going?" Torin asked.

"South. Tonight."

Torin looked at me.

"I want those crates," he said. "I want whatever books they keep."

"I'm coming."

"No."

"You'll have a hundred pages of southern shorthand and a quartermaster who burns what he can't carry," I said. "You need someone who reads accounts."

"That's me."

He opened his mouth.

"She's right," said Torvi from the stairs, buckling her quiver on. "Annoyingly."

"I'll stay behind you," I said.

"You'll stay behind Torvi."

"Fine."

"And you'll do what she says."

"Fine."

He glared at us both.

Then he sighed, the sigh of a man being outvoted in his own house, and went to get his coat.

We rode in the grey before dawn, twenty Hawkscar wolves on shaggy mountain ponies, and the road climbed until my ears popped.

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