The question hung in the cold stone passage like smoke from a damp chimney.
Noll Vey wished, with a sudden and unreasonable longing, for his old pine crate and his birch-dowel wand. When a human mark in a market square asked an awkward question—why the southern dove smelled of whitewash, say, or why the Duke’s salt bond was printed on butter-wrapping paper—you could always drop a brass thimble, blame the wind, and steer the conversation toward the gentleman’s handsome waistcoat. You could not steer a nascent catastrophe that lived inside the bedrock and listened to eight thousand frightened minds at once.
Footsteps clattered down the narrow spiral stair from the upper hall. Sella Rusk came around the stone newel post first, her oilskin ranger’s cloak thrown over her night-tunic and her hand resting on the pommel of her short sword. Behind her came Hobb, carrying a shuttered horn lantern and still wearing his canvas kitchen apron stained with yesterday’s bean liquor.
“I felt the lintel shift from the gatehouse,” Sella said, halting at the foot of the steps beside Tessa Dene and Sergeant Berr. Her grey eyes went immediately to the pale frost inscription above the ninth door. “One hundred and ninety hours? It was one hundred and ninety-two when I relieved the west watch.”
