“Don’t touch the latch-ring, Hobb,” Noll Vey said quietly.
The fort cook, who had been leaning forward with his thick fingers hooked into his apron strings to squint at the smoky black plate on the landing stone, jerked his chin back as if the bog-oak door had hissed at him.
“I wasn’t going to touch the latch, Master Noll,” Hobb muttered, though his boot heels scraped half a step toward the bottom stair riser all the same. “I wouldn’t touch that iron with a ten-foot peel. I’ve seen roast geese come out of an oven looking less personal than that plate.”
Noll stood with his heavy limestone palms braced against the curved masonry of the stairwell wall, letting his core sight soak down into the granite threshold stone beneath the ninth door.
The stone itself was not cracked. Nor had the ledger ward been picked or forced. When Noll had stood on the rampart five mornings ago and proclaimed the Last Guest before Orin Vane’s eight thousand men, he had bound the claim under five explicit clauses—and the final clause stated that the visitor would stay until the last supper was served. For five days, the fear of the siege camp below and the watchful reverence of the hill fort above had been pouring down into the foundation room behind the ninth door like rainwater filling a cistern.
