Boulders were prominent; grass and trees were few.
The road wound thinly between the hills, frequently becoming so narrow that even the single cart was enough to block it entirely.
Just when it seemed the climbing would continue forever, the road turned down, and the seemingly endless naked rocks and dried shrubs suddenly changed to a wide awaiting vista.
While the journey had been more interesting than endless grass plains, most anyone would find the travel tiresome by the fifth day.
From the road, tinged with a loneliness that suggested the coming winter, the voice that once sounded its delight at the undulations of the stony, ocher path was now gone. Its owner was now apparently too bored to even sit on the bench of the cart; she lay instead in the bed, grooming the fur of her tail.
A young man drove the cart, apparently used to such selfish behavior on the part of his companion. The man, Kraft Lawrence, was instantly recognizable as a traveling merchant. This
year made the seventh since he'd struck out on his own, and he appeared to be around twenty-five.
As if in acknowledgment of the chill that came with the deepening autumn, he tightened the fur coat that was wrapped around his body.
Occasionally, the chill also caused him to stroke his chin, covered in the sort of beard one often saw on traveling merchants, since when he sat still, he became slightly cooler. Letting a breath escape that would have turned foggy once the sun set, Lawrence glanced over his shoulder at the bed of the cart.
Normally filled to the brim with various goods, the bed was enjoying a brief respite. All that stood out was the firewood and straw that provided warmth at night, along with a single bag, small enough for a child to carry.
However, the contents of the bag were more valuable than an entire cart full of wheat would have been. The bag was full of high-grade pepper worth roughly one thousand silver trenni. If it could be sold in a mountain town, it might fetch as much as seventeen hundred pieces, but the bag was currently being used as a pillow by Lawrence's companion, who continued lazily grooming her tail.
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