It was the middle of the night when the prince came down the Undercroft stair alone, and Mourner knew his step before it reached the fifth stone, because the Garrison Mound had learned every step in the Hold by listening to the people who had to be sung after they stopped walking on it.
The Chamber had gone up at the candle-clock. Harrow had gone up with it, and Tallow with his ledger, and Pell with her empty basket, and even Ysra had left her stool at the stair-head once the lamps were low and the stone had stopped ticking with the day’s warmth. Wren had stayed a while longer, sitting on the bottom step with her knees drawn up and her arms round them, and then she had gone too, saying nothing. Mourner had heard her go. She had sung her a short line as she passed, because the Mound’s voice was the only one in the Hold that never went up a stair without leaving a name behind, and Wren had not turned round, but her shoulders had moved, very slightly, as a person’s do when they have been given something they cannot yet put down.
So the Undercroft was empty when the prince came in. There was only the Keystone, its warm face turned to the ring, and the cold brazier at the bench’s end, and the Form of the Garrison Mound sitting in her own chair at the ring’s far edge with her face toward the…
