Long after Clerk Cale’s damp boots had passed beyond the outer porch and vanished into the mist along the hill road, Noll Vey kept his sight fixed on the empty threshold stone.
Sella Rusk had followed the boy as far as the west rampart wall to watch the valley track with her brass spyglass, making sure no Survey outrider intercepted him before he reached the wash-house window at the foot of the slope. Back by the pantry arch, Hobb was clattering among his iron pots, hauling out his heavy cast-iron lard kettle and a sack of dry charcoal to see whether the hearth heat could be coaxed high enough to melt banned silver without a blacksmith’s bellows.
That left only Tessa Dene and Prit in the Grand Hall.
Tessa stood beside the limestone bench, slowly gathering the fifty black-sun crowns back into the soot-darkened leather pouch two at a time. Usually she handled silver with the brisk, cheerful satisfaction of a girl who knew the exact price of a sack of barley meal and a dry pair of winter soles. Now each heavy clink sounded dull and suspicious, as if the old king’s counter-stamped face might bite her thumb through the leather.
