Idrin came down from the gatehouse to the arch in the first light, with his arm in its sling and the Seal aching under his shirt, because the Hollowed were walking up the road toward the Hold, and because somebody had to stand at the gate who was not afraid to be seen by them.
He had not decided to come. He had been at the window, watching the grey column come up off the frost, and he had heard Tallow say they are coming to the gate in the flat voice of a clerk who had counted the distance to the arch and found it very short. He had put on his coat. He had found his cravat and tied it one-handed, badly, and had not cared. Then he had gone down the gatehouse stair two steps at a time, which the Seal did not like, and had come out under the arch into the cold, and the Lessaran line had been sitting in the road beyond the chalk with its helmets in its laps and its face turned toward him, and the Hollowed had been walking through it.
They did not stop. The companies did not stop them. The sergeant of the third company stood up as the first grey figure passed his rank and raised his hand as though to bar the way, and then looked at his own hand and lowered it again, very slowly, as if he could not think what he had meant to…
