Chapter 73: Trial of patience

The crown prince is a known figure for the guards at the gates. He is a good horseman, who cut clean elegant lines framed against the sun. His pace made tendrils of dust rise from beneath the hooves of his mount; and the mount, a stallion with a coat of rusty brown shines copper and bronze in the shifting light. 

The two guards stationed at the top most landing of the watchtower notice him first and exchange a look of alarm. 

"What do you think?" The first man asks his companion. "Escaping a fire or coming to start one?"

The companion chuckles, hunches over the opening in the landing leading the stairs down to lower levels and shouts at some twenty odd men posted at the gates. 

"Open!" 

Still laughing, he straightens up, stretches himself over the wooden banisters of the watchtower and observes the prince as his mount eats away the distance between them.