The memory of the roast capon still lingered in the back of Noll’s stone consciousness like the warmth of apple brandy on an empty stomach.
It had been so simple on that fourth night after the delve rooms opened. Sella’s rangers had been shivering on the gravel bench, their bellies hollow from three days on the road, and Noll had spun a three-sentence tale about an iron roasting spit turning in the chimney nook. The ledger had caught the claim, Sella’s hungry men had swallowed the illusion with their eyes, and the credit had flowed into the masonry sweet and clean. They had eaten until their greasy chins shone in the firelight.
Now, looking through the mortar cracks at Hobb scraping pea-meal from the corners of his wooden trough, Noll felt the familiar itch of the stage manager when the audience begins to shuffle their boots and grumble at the curtain.
“Call a council under Rule Two,” Noll said, his voice warming the hearth lintel until the soot flakes curled. “Assemble the residents. Tessa, Sella, Fen, Hobb. We take a formal show of hands, record the agreement on the slate, and then I make the proclamation through the gate arch.”
