By the well in the square of Five Willows, an old man with a beard the color of winter ash sat on the stone rim. His face was a map of deep ravines, his cheekbones jutting out like sharp rocks. His rough tunic, a mosaic of a thousand patches, fluttered in the biting wind.
"Is it truly as they say?" Old Carlyle asked the man beside him. "I find it hard to swallow."
The middle-aged man was chewing on a bitter leaf, the green juice staining his lips. He looked as if he were savoring a royal banquet. "It's true enough, Carlyle. A copper penny for every pound of beets. If you bring more than fifty, they pay a Silver Moon for every seven. If my fields weren't already sown with winter wheat, I'd pull the lot up for beets and run to the Gods Eye."
Carlyle snorted, his eyes full of the suspicion that kept a man alive in the Riverlands. "Beets for silver? You've been dreaming of the Seven Heavens again, Duke."
"Believe what you like," the man replied, standing up and dusting his seat. "You've a cellar full of them. Let them rot in the rain if you're so proud. I'm off to find someone with more sense."
Carlyle watched him leave, then gripped the handles of his rusted iron-hooped cart. He had banged his foot on a sharp stone while tilling the earth a few days ago. It wasn't broken, but it had swollen into a purple lump that made every step a trial. In this world, a man without a good leg was a man waiting for the crows.
The rumors said the Northmen had been driven back, that Lord Tywin was Hand, and peace was coming. But Carlyle had heard of "peace" before. Usually, it just meant the tax-men arrived before the brigands did.
He limped home, the wheel of his cart shrieking with a rusted skrie-ah that echoed off the sagging timber walls of the village. Inside his hut, the air was thick with the stinging smoke of damp firewood. His wife, Karina, was bent over the hearth, her body racked by a deep, wet cough that seemed to vibrate in her very bones.
"Still no better?" Carlyle asked, his voice softening. "I'll go to the woods-witch tomorrow."
"Don't waste the coin," Karina wheezed, rubbing eyes that were red from the smoke.
A moon ago, "Broken Men" wearing scorched white-wolf surcoats had raided the village. Carlyle and Karina had escaped through a back window and swam the cold river to hide in the woods. They had survived, but the chill had taken root in Karina's lungs. The village septry had been a ruin for years; there were no brothers of the Faith here, only the desperate prayers of the dying.
"Thirty miles east is the Fisher estate," Carlyle said. "Duke says they're buying beets. If I can sell the cellar's stock, I can buy you real medicine and perhaps a wool blanket. The wolves took our last one."
Karina hesitated. "But Lord Goodbrook... he forbade grain from leaving the lands, didn't he? Is this not treason?"
"Lord Goodbrook is a name on a piece of parchment in a castle far away," Carlyle grunted. "And beets are roots, not grain. I'll be back in two days. Bake me some hardbread for the road."
He left before dawn, the moon casting a silver sheen over the vegetable patch. He dug the beets by hand, his joints popping like dry twigs. Once the cart was loaded to the limit of his strength, he lashed the pile down with hemp rope.
"If the outlaws come, run for the river cave," he whispered to his wife. "And don't tell the neighbors about the grain I hid under the floor."
"Go," she urged, her voice a mere rasp. "Before the sun catches you."
The trek across the ridge of Big-Foot Mountain was a journey through a nightmare. The landscape was silent, the woods harboring shadows that looked like monsters. By nightfall, his foot was a throbbing mass of fire. He didn't dare light a flame, fearing it would draw the "Mummers" or the starving refugees who roamed the brush. He curled up behind his cart, shivering in the damp mud, drawing what little heat he could from his own emaciated body.
Dawn brought a pale, watery light. Carlyle wiped his nose on a tree trunk and resumed the push. To his shock, the road was clear. No bandits, no corpses. Near the edge of the Fisher Manor, he saw the reason why.
A squad of five men in black wool surcoats were marching in a disciplined line. Carlyle's heart seized. He scrambled to the side of the road, pulling off his tattered cap and bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the mud.
In his haste, the cart slipped. It rolled down the embankment, spilling the beets across the dirt. Carlyle scrambled down to save his "wealth," expecting the soldiers to draw steel or trample him.
Instead, the soldiers jumped down after him.
Carlyle's heart sank. They're taking the lot, he thought. I'll be lucky if they leave me the wheels.
But the men didn't put the beets in their own packs. They righted the cart, hauled it back onto the road, and began tossing the spilled roots back into the bin.
Carlyle stood frozen. "Lord?"
"Don't just stand there, old man," a veteran soldier said, his voice surprisingly kind. "You're here for the market, aren't you? Get moving before the price drops."
Carlyle bowed until his back ached. "Thank you, My Lord. Thank you."
"I'm no Lord," the soldier laughed. He looked at Carlyle's swollen foot. "Ed, take this man's cart to the exchange. When you're done, take him to the septry. Tell Brother Roland to look at that foot."
"Aye, Captain."
A young soldier named Ed unlatched his spearhead, tucked it into a leather sheath at his belt, and handed the shaft to Carlyle. "Use this as a crutch, uncle. Let's move. I've a patrol to finish."
The exchange point was a hive of activity. Farmers with carts and baskets crowded around a massive timber shed. Men in white surcoats were weighing goods on heavy scales, their pens scratching across parchment.
Ed left him at the front of the line. Carlyle stared at the Fisher Manor gates—they were reinforced with new oak and shimmering bronze. He had heard the place was sacked twice, yet here it stood, mended and strong.
"Fresh dug?" a youth behind a table asked, picking up a beet to inspect it.
"Yesterday morning, My Lord," Carlyle stammered.
"I'm an apprentice, not a Lord," the boy corrected. "First grade crop. I'll give you a Copper Star for every six and a half pounds. Acceptable?"
"Yes! Yes, you are a saint, young master!"
Carlyle walked away with eleven Copper Stars and seven pennies tucked into his tunic. It was more money than he had seen since the start of the war. He felt a surge of hope, but as he turned to leave, his foot gave way.
He looked at the septry—a sturdy stone building near the manor walls. He thought of Karina's cough and the young soldier's promise. He took a deep breath and limped back to the apprentice's table.
"Young man... where might I find the Brother who heals?"
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