The Knot was spoken in the open Hall, on the page, with the whole Chamber to hear it, and Ysra stood opposite the cook at the Hearth’s rail with her hands shaking and her count-book open in front of her for the last time.
It was the afternoon. The shutters had been thrown back, and the light came into the Great Hall in long slanting bars that lay across the flags and the casks and the nine chairs, so that the room seemed to have been divided into strips, like a loaf that had been cut too thin. Tallow sat at the end of the table with the minute-book open and his pen dipped. He did not lift his head when Ysra came in. He had written her name in the attendance already, and the Hearth had recorded her presence, and there was nothing left for a clerk to do but to write down what came next as exactly as the Ink would let him.
Idrin sat at the head of the casks. He did not speak. He had his hands folded on the table and his face was quiet, and when Ysra glanced up at him she saw that he was watching not her but the cook, with the look a man gives a loaf he has been told is ready to come out of the oven and does not yet trust. The Knot was between the two women. It was not between a Warden and anybody. He had…
