The second division took less time than the first, because everyone in the Hall had already said what they were going to say, and most of them had been saying it to themselves all night.
Sella could see it in their faces when she came in. Korrin had his arms folded and his jaw set, but his shoulders were a little less hard than they had been the day before, as a man’s shoulders sag a little when he has accepted a weight he has already decided to carry. Gaunt had been up at the Forge since the grey of the morning, and his beard was combed and his leather apron tied, and he sat on his bench looking at the copy on the table as if it were a bar of iron that had come out of the fire the wrong colour. Harrow’s count-cord was looped round his wrist and his lips were moving. Pell had flour on her cheek. Ysra had her eyes shut. Tallow had his pen ready and his minute-book open, and his right hand, Sella noticed, was perfectly steady.
Tamsin sat on the goats’ side of the table with her hands in her lap and the ninth copy folded under them. She had not spoken since she came in. She had a faint smear of white at the corner of her mouth that might have been milk, and her eyes were red-rimmed, but she held herself very upright, the way Sella had seen a woman…
