The carriage that pulled up in front of Jocelynn was a sturdy, well-maintained coach bearing the warhorse and lances of House Aleese, drawn by a pair of dappled gray mares whose breath steamed in the cold air. The driver brought it to a halt near the yard's main gate, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then the carriage door opened, and a tall figure in a dark traveling cloak stepped out, pausing to pull the hood back from her steel-grey hair before surveying the yard with sharp, intelligent eyes.
Baroness Peigi Aleese was a striking woman, even after she passed her fiftieth birthday. She moved with the unhurried confidence of someone who had spent decades navigating the politics of frontier nobility and had long since stopped being bothered by things as trivial as early mornings or bitter cold.
