Lady Greyfen holds her own bridle. Mud on the hem. A chest strapped behind the saddle that is accounts, not treasure from a song. She is the landholder. Knights of the household, she tells you without being asked, are at shire business: lists, disputes, a bridge two villages over. Today that looks like a tired woman who can still make a courtyard go quiet.

“Miller’s apprentice,” she says, reading your flour. “Aldith wrote me the stone. Tomas keeps the calendar. I keep the manor from becoming a rumor.”

She is not a tournament poster. She asks what you have seen. You answer in the shortest honest sentences you have, and you do not pad the list with places your feet missed.

“Hallmoot can have a token from my hand,” she says, “which means they will hear more than whose pig ate whose onion. Or you may walk the market stakes with me before the light goes. I like to see the trestles while they are still empty enough to confess their plans.”

Her horse blows. Michaelmas sits on the town like a lid about to be lifted.