The Great Hall was full.
Idrin had never seen it so full. The nine seats were taken, every Hand at the long table with its copy of the Oath open before it. Harrow’s lips were already moving on the first count. Gaunt stood at the back by the door with his arms folded. Pell had come up from the Kitchen with flour on one cheek, and she was reading the weight on the Forge’s iron plate, which hung by the Chamber door, under her breath.
And at the back, against the doors where the Chamber let them stand, the lodgers had come. Wren was there, with the slate under one arm. Osk leaned on his stick beside Hanne Wenn, whose hands were wrapped in her shawl. Piers Hadley stood with his boots on and his broad, grey-stained hands at his sides. He gave the Regent no glance. He looked at the iron plate.
Idrin took his place at the head of the table, in front of the chair of state, which Velvet had turned at its angle that morning and which he had not yet sat in.
He did not sit. He stood before it with the Oath in his right hand, and he felt, for a moment, as if he were standing at the bottom of a well.
