The lamp came down the stair alone, at the dead of night, with nobody behind it but the prince.
Brannoc heard the steps before he saw the light. There were fewer of them than there had been in the morning. No Chamber. No Clerk’s tally-board knocking against a thigh. No Watch-woman counting under her breath, and no Lash to stop at the bottom of the stair and wait for the door to show him something he did not like. Only a single pair of boots, careful on the wet treads, and a breath that came short at the bend where the steps narrowed and the drain ran loudest.
He knew the boots. He had known them since the prince first walked up the causeway in the cold, years and years ago, in a dress coat with the Lessaran lace still at the cuffs.
“Brannoc,” said Idrin, from the doorway.
“The gate is wet,” said Brannoc.
“Yes. I can hear it.” The prince came in with the lamp held out in his right hand, and his left was tucked under his coat, and the light made his face look older than it was. He set the lamp on the step beside the windlass, where it had stood that morning, and sat down on the step beside it without asking leave, and the wet stone took him with a faint cold sigh. “I am not here as the prince. I want that understood. I came down by myself. The Watch at the…
