At five o’clock that evening, as the blue winter dusk settled over the mended west rampart and the last day of Lord Auditor Orin Vane’s four-day ultimatum ran out with the light, Prit scrubbed the large hall slate with vinegar and hung it on the iron peg beside the hearth.
When Prit used vinegar instead of his coat sleeve, it meant constitutional business.
Noll Vey watched from his western niche as the entire household gathered around the long trestle table. There were nine of them inside the walls tonight: Tessa Dene with her mason’s hammer still hooked in her belt loop; Sella Rusk at the table’s head with her ranger map-case laid flat before her; Fen sitting beside the miner Renn, who had hobbled out from the clinic cot on a pine crutch Hobb had whittled for him; Sergeant Berr standing at parade rest by the door-post with Nera’s blue scarf folded inside his breastplate; Hobb himself shuttling between the bench and the soup pot; Cale perched nervously on the corner stool with three stolen March Ledger carbon sheets in his lap; and Hesta Quill, Noll’s former stage partner, leaning back against the flour barrels with her patched velvet cloak wrapped around her shoulders and her arms crossed as if waiting for a bad third act to begin.
