The old burial plot lay behind the north wall, where the Keep’s first masons had dug their graves and then forgotten them.
Calen came out there at first light on Day 116. The grass was wet and long. The markers stood at angles, most of them snapped off at the base, and the few still upright had been worn smooth by a hundred winters.
Tobin was already kneeling in the middle of the plot. He had his coat off and his sleeves rolled to the elbow. His left hand was flat on the earth, and his right rested on his knee, and both hands were a dull blue in the cold.
“Stand back, sir,” said Tobin, without looking up. “Past the wall stone. Not closer.”
Calen stopped at the wall stone. He had not planned to step closer anyway.
“How many?”
“I will not count them, sir,” said Tobin. “Not out loud.”
“Does a licence say you can do this?”
