Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles by Katya Reimann Page B

Road!” Gaultry said, shocked. “Who would allow this bridge to get to this state?”
    Martin loosed his reins and rubbed his neck. “Who do you think? The late Chancellor of Tielmark was also the Master of its High Road and bridges.”
    The late Chancellor of Tielmark had been a Bissanty loyalist. Gaultry, who had been personally responsible for his death, paled with shock as her poor understanding of the far-reaching consequences of a disloyal chancellor came freshly home to her. “How could Tielmark trust something so important to a man up to his elbows in paper and court protocol? Even if he wasn’t a Bissanty snake? And why send a Priestess instead of a builder to fix it?”
    “Benet has been a long time coming into his power.” Martin sounded tired. He slid out of his saddle, pulling his reins over his horse’s head so he could better control the animal in the crowd. “Years of regency after his father died, then a traitor chancellor. He’s actually held the throne of Tielmark for almost eight years now—yet with the regency and the ill-counsel of his chancellor considered, his marriage this spring can be counted his first entirely self-ruled act as Tielmark’s ruler. Do you wonder that his bridges are rotten?”
    Gaultry stared, first at the bridge, then at the marketgoers who waited, patient but increasingly surly, on both riverbanks. “This bridge has been collapsing for more than eight years,” she observed. “Was Benet’s father ineffective too?” Martin was old enough to remember, even if Gaultry was not.
    Martin shrugged. “Ginvers was a soldier, like his brother Roualt before him. You’d have to go back to Corinne for a ruler who took the time to care about her roads. Besides, the lands that border the High Road are a patchwork of small estates, each owing allegiance to different power-holders. There must be some local dispute.”
    Following Martin’s example, Gaultry and the others dismounted, leading their horses to the back of the queue that twined round on their side of the bank.
    Gaultry was dismayed at the numbers—and the volume of the produce—that lay ahead of them. “We’ll be here hours. Maybe it would have been faster to find a place to wade.”
    Tullier smirked.
    “Not necessarily.” Martin, catching Tullier’s expression, eyed him with a look of serious displeasure. “I’ll not argue with every pig farmer, but this—obviously we can’t waste the rest of the day standing here.” He slapped his reins into Gaultry’s hand and pushed through the crowd to speak with the bridgekeeper.
    “Talk about choosing one’s battles unwisely!” Gaultry said between her teeth. “Just watch. This will prove worse than me with the pig-woman.
Tielmaran farmers won’t stand for queue-jumping.”
    Sure enough, as Martin finished speaking to the bridgekeeper and beckoned them to the front, calls of complaint rose from both banks. The monkey and the tamarin particularly drew the crowd’s ire—as if the creatures were proof that the travelers were performers or players, greedy for a chance to set up a stall early.
    “Get back in line!” one man behind them shrieked. To judge by his dress, he and his companions actually were actors or minstrels. “We’ll all reach Soiscroix in good time, if no one pushes forward unfairly!”
    “Quiet! Quiet! They’re on the Prince’s business,” the bridgekeeper protested, his breathy, soft-toned voice scarcely audible above the tumult. “Their business gives them right of passage—”
    No one listened. Martin, ignoring the catcalls, stepped onto the bridge and beckoned. Gaultry tossed her reins to the Sharif and hurried up to him. “Martin—this isn’t a good idea.”
    “Hurry up. There’s going to be a surge if we don’t make this quick.” He manhandled Gaultry past him. “Come along you two!” he called to the Sharif and Tullier. “Prince’s business!”
    Gaultry, reluctant, took two paces along the bridge. A man at the