Pell walked the north wall at dusk with the boy, because he could not sleep and she was tired of watching him not sleep. She had given up trying to stop him doing it. A prince who would not go to bed was a prince who would walk, and a prince who walked on the wall in the cold was at least within earshot of the Kitchen, which was where Pell had always preferred to keep her troubles.
The light was going out of the marsh in long bands of grey and copper. The Lessary Road ran away below them, pale with the last of the thaw, and at the far end of it, beyond the lower ford, the Chancery’s riders had been coming and going all afternoon like flies around a pot that had not yet been opened. Pell had counted them from the Kitchen window with a sack of onions in her lap. Eleven, going out. Seven, coming back. Four with pennants, and one with a bundle strapped behind his saddle that he had not wanted to let go of, even to a horse.
“There’s nothing to see on the road,” she said, which was a lie. “It’s a sight of no consequence. The Chancery’s clerks have run out of ink, that’s what it is, and they’re riding about looking for a pot.”
