The cold from the flagstones had climbed past Noll’s basalt shins, settling into the porous lime joints of his knees like river silt.
Beside him on the lower step of the witness platform, Tessa Dene did not stand up. Her shoulder remained pressed against the rough grey edge of his stone leg, her wool coat smelling of chimney smoke, damp morning mist, and the bitter tallow grease she used to keep her salvage bread knife from rusting in the scabbard. Across the oak rail, Cale dragged an ash-wood stool from the clerk’s table, the legs scraping a pair of white trails through the lime dust on the floor.
Prit did not sit. The bone imp hopped from the platform to the corner of the witness rail, his bare skeletal heels clicking lightly against the timber. He set his cedar-framed slate flat across his knees, dipped the edge of his cleaning rag into his small tin of vinegar, and wiped the running column of numbers clean with three circular strokes.
“The crowd is through the outer arch,” Cale said, dipping his steel pen into the dark well of gall ink. “Hobb has the turnip kettle over the coal stove in the wagon shed. Sella and Captain Dorn have the sentry lines posted along the ditch. The inner rooms are cold, Noll. Nobody is walking the lower corridors.”
