Crestwood is always muddy, but it's particularly muddy now, with the combined efforts of spring rains and melting snow from the mountains. It's not difficult to get there by eluvian; the difficulty comes in navigating one's way out of the little township itself and to the neighboring farms, where the roads are rougher and the villagers less helpful, especially to someone who sounds like a nobleman.

When Byerly arrives at the humble, thatch-roofed Milliner homestead, he first encounters a pair of older children working together to draw water from the well. Their direction points him to the back of the house, where the matriarch, Prudence, is taking advantage of the break in the rain to hang laundry with two of her daughters. At her feet, a little child five-or-so years old plays with wooden soldiers.

She turns at the sight of the unfamiliar figure, her expression automatically darkening. Obeisance wore his Riftwatch regalia when he visited; she knows it. Something has happened.