Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
Fenwick is the mapmaker who crosses the col each spring and autumn — the col-house's newspaper and its window on the wider road. It was travellers' word, carried by men like him, that first named the place "the kettle house." He keeps an accurate, unsentimental eye on everything, which is exactly why his quiet verdict — on the house, and on the people passing through it — is worth having.
Brix is a young traveller who comes over the col burned out, his walking-party gone on ahead without him, and…
Caer is the road-warden who first comes to survey the newly-built house at the top of the col, back in its…
Hetty keeps the col-house supplied, hauling barley and stores up the pass twice a season and refusing, most…
Marga kept the col-house for the better part of a lifetime before Toll, and she is the one who took him in…
Oswyn is the founder — the road-builder who raised the col-house from a shepherd's ruined shelter and became…
Toll keeps the col-house — the highest, hardest, most necessary rest-house on the mountain road — and he…