Free Rex Regis by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

at some time in the past, someone had built a stone causeway through the swampy ground, and that the causeway had included two culverts to drain water away.
    In the end, some two glasses later, a stone roadway, with three arched culverts beneath and smaller channels feeding into the larger one that Horan had created, stretched almost four hundred yards through what had been a swampy depression.
    Once the last traces of frost from the imaging had faded, they resumed their journey.
    “If the people here had just maintained what was built here in the first place, they wouldn’t have had that problem,” observed Vaelora.
    “The local smallholders don’t have the ability to do that, not without neglecting their own lands. There aren’t any High Holders near, and the factors in Faantyl and Eelan don’t want to spend the silvers or golds because they don’t see any immediate coins from repairing the road. That’s the problem with leaving everything in the hands of the factors. If it doesn’t benefit them directly and immediately, most of them won’t do things that help others, especially here in Bovaria, it appears.”
    Two milles north of the swampy area and the newly rebuilt causeway, Vaelora suddenly pointed to a low rise on which there were several scattered stone and brick walls. The brick was, once more, pale yellow. “Over there, on the hillside.”
    Just ahead, also on the left, was a double line of trees, although there were many gaps in the trees that had once flanked a drive leading to the buildings.
    “Most likely, the former High Holder who once lived there built the causeway,” suggested Quaeryt.
    “This isn’t that narrow a road. Or it wasn’t. Look at how wide the shoulders are.”
    Quaeryt had noticed that earlier. “You’re thinking that this was once the main way from Varian to Daaren before the Great Canal was built?”
    “It was a more important road then.”
    “That makes sense. The route is shorter.” It also proved to Quaeryt how much Kharst and his sire had neglected the roads of Bovaria.
    For the rest of the morning and the first three glasses of the afternoon, the road remained passable, although in two cases, Quaeryt had the imagers replace small timber bridges with stone spans, but those were across small creeks.
    Just after fourth glass, up ahead, he saw an oblong stone, upright, but half buried in turf that threatened to engulf it. When they rode closer, he could see that the millestone held letters carved into the stone that time and weather had softened until they were barely readable: EELAN-4 M.
    “Have you ever heard or read of the place?” asked Vaelora.
    “Except as a name on a map? No.”
    They rode another two milles. Then the road curved away from the river, running due east for a good half mille before turning back north again. Quaeryt also noticed that the Phraan River itself had bent more to the west, and he wondered why the road hadn’t at least gone straight. After another half mille, he saw why. Off the road to the left was a high holding, not a huge one, but definitely a high holding with a large residence constructed out of pale yellow brick and gray stone situated on a low rise that presumably overlooked the river, although Quaeryt couldn’t see the river from the road. Ahead was a set of gates, simple black iron anchored in two large yellow brick and gray stone pillars, with a low pale yellow brick wall running some fifty yards back from the gates on each side.
    As they rode past, Quaeryt saw no indication of who the High Holder might be, although the well-kept grounds and thin trails of smoke from more than a few chimneys indicated that the holding was definitely in use.
    “I would have thought,” ventured Vaelora, “that the High Holder might have had some interest in better roads.”
    “His holding is on the river, and it’s deep enough, barely, for travel and probably for small boats to bring goods down from Eluthyn. The last thing he’d have