The iron kitchen hinge weighed four pounds in Tessa Dene’s left hand, greasy with old mutton tallow around the knuckle and bent just enough at the pintle pin to scrape the pantry jamb every time Hobb swung the door.
“Two blows with the flat of the cobbler’s hammer,” Tessa muttered aloud to herself as she shouldered open the narrow plank door at the back of the scullery, her salvage bread knife riding in its leather sheath at her right hip. “Tap the pin straight on the cellar block, clear the turnip peels out of the sump grate, and be back upstairs before Sella and Renn finish drawing the mine shaft.”
From the western wall of the Grand Hall behind the kitchen arch, Noll Vey’s mortar-voice called after her in a warm, absentminded hum: “Mind the third step down, Tessa! The lime mortar’s been sweating since the thaw started, and I haven’t had a spare point to dry the riser.”
“I’ve walked down your cellar stairs four times a day since March, Noll,” Tessa called back over her shoulder, catching a lit tallow dip in its tin saucer with her right hand. “Save your fretting for the clerks.”
She stepped across the stone sill and pulled the scullery door half-shut behind her so the cold cellar draft wouldn’t flatten Hobb’s bread dough.
