Ossane asked for a private hour before the Oath was sworn, and she asked for it in the Gatehouse, in the Regent’s own room, so that nobody in the Hall would be able to say afterwards that the Chancery had made its arrangements in public.
She came up the stair alone. She had left her clerks at the foot of it with orders not to follow, and she came up slowly, with her black cane tapping on each tread and her green cloak over her arm. At the top she stopped in the doorway of the room, and looked round it with the frank, unhurried attention of a woman who had been in a great many rooms of this kind and had learned to read them in a glance. The bed. The shelves. The long table, with its scarred rings and its lamp. The window seat with its cracked cushion. The Regent, standing by the window, in his shirt, with his left hand held loose at his side.
“It is very cold in here, Highness,” she said.
“It is very cold everywhere in the Hold,” said Idrin. “The Chamber does not believe in fires. It believes in counting.”
“Yes. My Chancellor believes the same. He thinks a warm room is a sign of an unbalanced budget.” She came in and set her cane against the table, and sat down on the cushioned chair that Velvet had sent up, without waiting to be asked. Then she looked at him, and her…
