Mireille had not come to the Undercroft to speak. She had come with the Census box and a candle in a tin shade, because the second sheet of the lease had to be laid beside the Crown’s copy in the same light if she was going to believe a word of either. The brazier had been built in the cellar that morning. It was low and red and it gave off a smell of scorched wool and old paper, and it sat at the bench’s end like a patient animal that had been told to be quiet.
Pell came down the stair with a loaf in a cloth and a face that said she had been told the cellar was no place for bread and had come anyway. She set the loaf on the bench’s corner, well away from the lease, and looked at Mireille over the top of the cloth.
“You’re the one with the box,” she said. “Don’t open it on my bench.”
“It is not my bench, Mistress Pell, and I have no intention of opening anything on it.”
“Good. Then eat the heel. You’ve a face like a Chancery clerk who has been up since the bell.” Pell pushed the cloth an inch nearer. Mireille did not touch it, and Pell sniffed, not offended, and turned to Idrin with her hands on her hips. “You too, boy. Five days of brazier-smoke and no bread is how the Hold loses its wits.”
