Millennial Mage novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Bridge Toll

The road to Quillon took two days, and the hunter walked it with his hands tied to Teo's saddle.

We left him at a shrine with a loaf of bread and no salt, and a note for the nearest patrol.

Teo said that was kinder than the Hall would have been.

I said I was keeping a list.

On the second afternoon we came down a hill into a river town.

The road ended at a long stone bridge packed with wagons.

Twenty-two of them stood in a line, loaded to the axles.

A crowd of drivers shouted at a man in a toll booth.

The man in the booth wore Hall gray.

He had a roll under his arm, a seal on a chain and the face of someone who has never been told no.

"Toll on twenty-two wagons," he said. "Forty silver a wagon, by the Hall's tariff. Pay or turn around."

"Forty!"

A stout old man with a white beard and a pipe in his teeth stood in front of the lead wagon.

"The tariff is four.

It has been four since my father drove this road."

"The tariff was revised."

"By whom?"

"By the Hall."

"It never said so on the post."

"The Hall's rolls are the Hall's rolls," the clerk said. "Pay."

Next to me, Teo muttered, "He will have them stuck here a week. Their goods will rot."

"Where are they going?"

"Harrow. It's salt and flour for the army."

I got off the mare.

"Hana," Teo said.

"I know."

"The Hall wants you hanged. You should not stand in front of a Hall clerk."

"I know."

"You are going to anyway."

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