Nell carried the bread board up the lodging stairs herself. She had taken it from the jailer at the bottom, and nobody had stopped her. Two loaves sat on the board with a folded cloth between them, and she held it level with both hands.
Calen stood on the landing with his back to the window. The rain had stopped in the night. Grey light came through the glass in a bar across the boards, and below it he could hear the Arena already filling.
Benches scraped. A man was calling prices for pies.
“Put it on the sill,” he said. “Hoff will count it.”
“Captain Hoff counted it at the bottom of the stair.” She set the board down anyway. She did not look at the bread. “Sir. What does Calamity mean?”
Calen did not answer at once. The word sat on the landing between them, short and heavy, the way a stone sits on a letter to keep it flat.
He had read it on the first sheet the day before. He had read it under the first line, in the same square hand. He had never once said it aloud in the Keep.
“The Record does not say what it means,” he said.
