Dorran had been at the far table since the bread, with a slate in front of him and a stub of chalk in his fist.
He had written a column of numbers down the left side. He had rubbed some of them out and written them again, smaller, so that they would fit. Now he sat with the chalk held above the slate, not touching it, and his lips moved without any sound.
“Four,” he said to the slate. “Four. Four.”
Calen had come in from the yard with the cold still on his coat. He stopped at the end of the table and waited. Dorran did not look up.
“Ives.”
“Sorry, sir.” Dorran’s chalk came down and wrote a small figure beside the last line. “I did not hear you come in.”
“What is the sum?”
Dorran looked at the slate as if he had forgotten what he had written on it. Then he swallowed.
