Dusk came to the ridge with the steady weight of rain smelling of wet slate and pine needles.
From the sill of the inner barbican, Noll felt the mountain take the weather into its pores. His stone body did not shiver—the basalt limbs and pale mortar of his joints remained indifferent to the autumn chill. In the old days, rain had meant damp costumes and the warmth of taverns where men paid two copper pence to be lied to under tallow lamps. Here, water ran down the stone chutes with the persistence of an unpaid score.
Down the switchback lane came Cale.
The former clerk was barely recognizable beneath a sodden wool cloak clinging to his shoulders. His boots slipped on wet limestone. Every few paces he stopped, braced a hand against the wall, and coughed into his sleeve—a dry rattle from hours on an overturned salt barrel in the market square.
Behind him climbed Tessa Dene and Sella Rusk carrying oilskin satchels of slates. Further back, her skirts hitched with twine, trudged Hesta Quill.
“Get him inside to the hearth bench,” Noll called down. His stone voice resonated through the archway. “Hobb has the kettle on.”
Inside the lower hall, the air was warm with split pine burning in Ossa Flint’s new cast-iron stoves. The heat crackled and drew cleanly up the brick flue because town masons had leveled the draft with honest mortar.
