Angol
The feud was eleven years old. It had cost four funerals, two mills and a bride.
Sir Kelvas Dray didn't start it. Dray never starts anything - he's a compositor, a professional neutral, the man you send for when a quarrel has finally run out of corpses and somebody wants it settled. He is the most reasonable man in the Empire, and it has brought him nothing but work.
His latest job looks simple. Escort one coach to the end of the road.
Then the coachman dies. Three days in. Still clutching a privilege that waves them through every gate in the Empire - right up until someone realises he isn't breathing.
Stopping is not an option. So Dray keeps driving: a dead man on the box, a high-born forger who answers to several names, an apostate conjuror having the time of his life, and a Church behind them with a keen professional interest in exactly the sort of dead man they happen to be carrying.
It's going to be a very long road. The passenger, at least, is in no hurry.
