The Sheafcross Coach

The Sheafcross Coach leaves from the coaching inn on Sheafcross market square at first light, and from the east gate of Three Rivers on the days between. It is a tall, square coach painted the brown of ripe wheat, with iron-rimmed wheels, a luggage rack on the roof and a horn hung by the driver's seat. Four horses pull it, and they are changed halfway at a post house on the edge of the forest.

The road runs out of the farm patchwork, into the trees and down to the river country, and the trip takes two long days with a night at the post house. The driver names the fare at the step, and it goes up when the weather is bad and down when the coach is half empty. A seat on the roof costs less than one inside, and the roof is where the gossip is. The driver blows the horn at every bend in the forest so that carts coming the other way can pull aside, and so that anything waiting in the trees knows the coach has a guard beside the driver.