Chapter 1: Apple and Elderberry

Bast, bored in the empty Waystone Inn, amuses himself with bottle-choosing rhymes and tasting liquor. Kote descends, asks after their guest, and smells alcohol. When pressed, Bast admits to tasting, not drinking. Kote pivots, addressing the previous night: Bast recognized and slowed a creature from the Mael, preventing greater slaughter, though public credit will go to a smith’s prentice. Bast deflects praise, mourning Shep, but Kote remains firm and asks Bast to handle something inspired by the song “White Riders’ Hunt,” which Bast readily accepts before hurrying out.

Kote settles into meticulous routines: baking bread, lighting fires, drawing water, and readying meat. With tasks complete, his eyes settle on the plain, menacing sword Folly mounted above the bottles. A knock interrupts; Graham arrives with three brass-bound barrels he crafted overnight, expecting late apples. They carry two to the cellar and one to the pantry, the room’s missing stools and table marking last night’s violence.

Graham, red-eyed, drinks a beer and labels the night’s events “bad business.” He asks about the visiting scribe to draft “laying-down papers,” and Kote supplies formal terms while noting the scribe will start by midday and seek a horse. They discuss worsening roads, robberies, taxes, the Grayden boys’ troubles, and a recent spider-like attack near Oldstone bridge. Graham wonders if times are truly worse or if it’s just age; Kote says things are usually bad in one way or another.

As Graham prepares to leave, Kote grows candid: conditions are bad and may worsen, so folk should prepare for a hard winter and know how to defend themselves. Graham agrees and departs to fieldwork.

The Bentons deliver late apples. Kote buys half, carefully sorting: firm fruit into barrels with sawdust for winter, ripe to the pantry, bruised to cider. He carries the cider apples to the garden press and works the handles with scarred, rope-muscled forearms. As cider patters into the bucket, his distant, joyless focus underscores his hidden history and the inn’s fragile calm.