The note came down the passage from the receiving-hall in the morning, and it came under the Kitchen door without anybody seeing the hand that pushed it.
Pell found it at the first bell, when she came in with the flour-sacks and went down on her knees to see why the draught was making the bread-cloths flap. It lay on the cold flags by the sill, folded twice into a small neat square, the way a Chamberlain folds a letter she does not want the Watch to read in passing. The paper was good. It was the thick cream stock that the receiving-hall used for its invitations, and it smelt faintly of the rose-water that Velvet had put on her handkerchiefs for as long as anyone in the Hold could remember.
Pell read it on her knees.
It was written in long, courtly lettering, the kind a Chamberlain learned in the schoolroom and never once forgot how to use. It said, in full, that the Chamberlain of Ormhold was grateful to the Kitchen for the bread on the Chamber’s table, which was the finest bread the Chamberlain had tasted in all her years of service. It said that the Chamberlain understood the Kitchen was busy, and would not presume to ask for more than a moment of the cook’s attention. And then it said that the Chamberlain would be very grateful if the Chamber, when it came to read the Roll, would be so kind as to read her last…
