Pell had been watching Kessa for a week, and on the tenth morning of the siege she finally looked at the bell properly.
It was small. That was the first thing. She had thought, when she first saw it tucked into the girl’s apron, that it would be the size of a church bell in miniature, something with a bit of weight to it, but it was no bigger than a plum. It was silver, or silver-plated over something dull, and it had a wooden handle worn pale by a thumb, and a little cord of grey wool wound round its neck. On its lip, where a bell would be struck, somebody had stamped a knot. It was an ugly, careful knot with three loops and a tail. Pell had seen the same knot tied in a sack of flour once, by a carrier from the Lessary Road who had wanted her to know that the sack was paid for, and she had not liked it then either.
Kessa stood at the proof-board with the bell in one hand and a loaf in the other, and she was not looking at either of them. She was looking at the far wall of the Kitchen, where a row of copper pans hung in order of size, the largest on the left.
