The Chamber met that afternoon in the Great Hall, at the candle-clock table that had been carried back down from the Survey House on the Lowgate carts, because the Hold had decided that a question about the causeway ought to be asked in the room where the causeway’s counts were kept.
It was a long table. It had been built for the Chamber in the first season, from the timbers of an old gallery, and it had been scarred and rescarred by every argument that had been fought across it since. Tallow had the head of it, with the minute-book open and the candle-clock at his elbow. Idrin sat on his left, in the plain grey coat he had worn to the Survey House, with his hands folded and his face set. Ysra sat across from Tallow, with her book closed on the table and her hands flat on top of it, which was not her habit. Harrow sat near the door with his count-cord coiled on his knee. Pell sat at the far end with her arms folded and her mouth set. Gaunt sat on the bench beside her, with his sling across his chest and his face thunderous, and he had not once looked at the empty place at the table’s foot. Sella was there with her bone-ledger shut. Mourner was there, too, though it was not Mourner’s habit to come into the Great Hall; the grave-tender sat on the floor by the window with her head bowed…
