The message came nine days after the trial, and it wasn't addressed to Rhys.
A rider found me in the training yard just after midday, a stranger in plain traveling clothes with no pack colors and no explanation, and pressed a folded slip of paper into my hand before I'd finished asking who he was.
By the time I looked up from reading it, he was already back on his horse, riding hard toward the border, and I understood immediately that chasing him would accomplish nothing.
Five lines, in a handwriting I'd seen once before on a letter found in a dead man's boot.
Your brother is a pleasant young man. Apprenticed to a cooper in Marren's Ford, I'm told, and rather good at it. He's comfortable where he is, for now.
Come alone to the old crossroads three days north of Hollow's End, seven n
