Bron Coldhand

The Broken Lances captain who turned a garrison contract into a holding — he runs Hewngate Keep as a toll-and-ransom business and takes Marn the Breaker's coin without ever saying so.

Bron does not think of himself as a bandit; he thinks of himself as the only honest man on the road, the one who admits a sword is just a price. He kept the ledger fair when he ran caravans for the company, and he keeps it fair now that he sells the caravans instead — the ransom-roll balances to the copper. He answers, quietly, to Marn the Breaker's idea of what steel is for, and louder to no one. He holds an Old Lances man in the undercroft because the old guard pay best for their own, and because it amuses him to make Sevrin Vossk come and buy back his oath.