By late morning, the south road had brought Heinrich Astoria and Ulric Walden into Anticourt with the last of the market carts.The square still showed the attack. The broken stones had been pulled out and replaced with new cobbles, but the patch was too clean against the older street. Two walls had been repaired with stone from a different quarry. The mortar was still pale where the rest of the building had darkened from smoke and rain.Ulric Walden stopped near the edge of the square and looked down."Here," he said.Heinrich dismounted and handed his reins to one of the caravan boys. He stopped at the outer edge of the repaired patch and walked along it first. His hands stayed clasped behind his back. Anyone watching would see a merchant judging frontage, cart room, and repair quality.The heat marks were still visible where the repair had not reached. A stone water trough near the corner had a crack running through its lip. The inside of the crack was glassy. Along the wall of a narrow counting house, one row of stones had sheared outward and been set back badly. The line did not match the rest of the wall.Ulric crouched and ran two fingers along the join between the old cobbles and the new."Newer cut," he said. "They matched the size, but the stone came from a different bed."Heinrich followed the line with his eyes until it reached the repaired wall. "The center must have been torn out whole. If they could have dressed the old stones, the color would not change like this."Ulric stood and brushed grit from his glove. "Two years, and the repair still marks the blast."A wagon rolled behind them, loaded with sacks of barley and two barrels of lamp oil. The driver glanced once at Heinrich's cloak pin, then at Ulric's boots, and kept moving.Heinrich noted the glance and looked toward the watch post."The tales were not wrong about the blast," Ulric said, standing. He brushed grit (...)