The Kitchen at night was the one room in the Hold that Pell had never once let anybody else lock. The oven kept its heat until the small hours, and the bread proved on the board under a cloth, and the copper pans hung in their rows over the scrubbed bench, catching the red light from the banked fire like a line of old coins. Nobody came down the back stair after the candle-clock unless they were hungry or in trouble. Pell did not much mind which.
She heard the door before she saw him.
The Kitchen latch had a particular click, and she had been listening for it since the bell, as a cook listens for the oven. It clicked now, and the cold came in from the stair, and then the Regent’s step came down the flags, slow and careful, and stopped at the end of the bench.
“You’re not in trouble,” said Pell, without turning round. “So you can have the stool, and the bread’s in the crock, and you can get it out yourself, because I’ve got my hands in the dough.”
“I’m not in trouble,” said Idrin.
“You’re always in trouble, boy. It’s the coat. Nobody sensible wears a braid at midnight.” She turned the dough over on the board with two hard slaps, and folded it, and slapped it again. “Sit down. Eat. Don’t argue.”
