Tobin was the only one of them who had ever been on the fourth stair long enough to read it, because a carrier learned his stairs with his feet before he learned them with his eyes.
He came down the Undercroft with a bucket of cold water in one hand and a soft cloth over his shoulder. Ysra had asked him to clean the landing wall. She had asked it at breakfast, in the voice she used for things she did not want to count herself, and she had said that the scraped square ought to be wiped of its dust, so that the Hold could see the shape of what was missing. Tobin had said that he would do it. He had not said that he would wipe the wall. He had decided on the stair that he would read it first, and then decide what to wipe.
The Undercroft was colder than the Great Hall and smelt of wet stone. The Keystone stood in its pale ring of floor with its north face turned toward the stair, and Tobin did not glance at its notches, because he had been counting them since the autumn and they did not need his attention. He put the bucket down on the bottom step. He put his hand on the wall at the landing’s height, and then he stood back and read it aloud, with his whole breath, the way he read everything.
