Eshmet Daal has a weathered, broad face and a blunt, patient gaze, with a dense black mustache going gray at its ends. His hands are square and roughened by reins, currycombs, and winter work. He walks with a slight outward roll to his left foot, as if making room for a horse at his shoulder, and stands very still when assessing an animal. Unexpectedly, he keeps a tiny bundle of pressed field flowers tucked into his coat lining, one for each horse he has had to sell in hard times.

He is patient with animals and guarded with people, yet can be unexpectedly warm once someone shows care rather than bravado. In ordinary business he is methodical and unhurried; when a horse is frightened, he becomes brisk and decisive. Financial pressure makes him stubborn, but he dislikes haggling that treats an animal like a sack of grain.

Eshmet grew up helping his aunt's family move remounts and pack animals between small estates outside Bellhaven. He learned to read a horse's breathing and feet before he learned to read a contract. In his twenties, he took a string of mounts across a flooded causeway; one young gelding panicked, fell, and could not be saved. Eshmet had trusted the seller's assurance instead of examining the animal himself, and the loss changed how he does business: he now refuses to describe a horse as sound until he has watched it walk, turn, and carry weight. He later rented two stalls and a lean-to at Kiln Bend, a muddy yard on the road just beyond the town's outer houses, and built a discreet trade in estate mounts, dependable road horses, and heavy riding geldings. He knows appraiser Tavian Rell, who has sent him buyers seeking a fair assessment of a horse's worth. His sister-in-law Sazha keeps the yard's accounts when she can spare the time from her own household. A wet spring has left Eshmet short of fodder and behind on rent, and the estate that usually sends him horses has recently delayed its next pair.