The herald had waited at the Ormhold gate since the new light. He rose from the mounting block when the body came through the arch, as if someone had taught him that a standing man was the proper thing to be when a prince came home. Then he seemed to recall that the prince had not come home to anyone who had sent for him, and he sat down again with a grey leather case across his knees.
Idrin stopped in the gate-yard and let the Hold come into his head.
It came the way it always did when the body was whole, one voice at a time, each with its own weight. Tallow first, with a number, saying that the gate-yard was eleven paces wide and that the Chancery had sent a horse lame in the near fore. Harrow, with a stone, saying the threshold had moved a finger’s width since the autumn and that he would not say which finger. Pell from the Kitchen door, with a complaint about the bread that began before she had finished the word. Ysra, from the top of the wall, saying that someone was on the stair.
“There is no one on the stair,” said Tallow.
