The Pact of Two Rivers

“An Oakhaven captain and a vintner who betrays his own guild launch four barges of iron against the chain that closes the river.”

With the first thaw in three centuries, the Arlanza flows once more from Oakhaven down to Valdelobos, but the border barons have closed it with two iron chains and take half of every cargo, from those upriver and those down. Captain Sira carries eighty hundredweight of ore that must become wheat for Oakhaven's spring. Nuño Arceo, syndic of the vintners of Valdelobos, rows upriver all night to propose a madness: lash four barges together in a wedge and hurl them at the chain on the crest of the flood. His guild has voted to keep paying. And someone in his own cellar is already telling the barons.