The forge was the only room in the Hold that Gaunt had never once been asked to leave, and he had built it to be argued in.
He had the bellows going before the Chamber bell, because a fire that is lit for a meeting is a fire that sulks. The coal was good. He had taken it himself from the Undercroft store, sifting it through his fingers as a man checks a purse, and he had found two lumps of slate in it and thrown them into the corner with a noise that carried through the wall into the Kitchen. Pell had sent word through the Mouth that he was a lout. He had sent word back that she was a cook, and that a cook who could hear a forge through the wall had no business complaining about a lout’s manners.
He made a spade-blade in the morning, a long clean edge for the wall-watch, because the Mason’s spare shovels were rusting in the yard and Harrow would not let anybody touch the stone-lift until the north courses were finished. Gaunt worked the metal until the colour went from red to a dull cherry and back again, and as he beat the blade flat he rehearsed his objections under his breath, in order, the way he had rehearsed every objection since the first winter, when the Hold had had one wall and nine opinions about it.
