The sun hung three fingers above the western ridge when Garret the cooper and his wife Martha reached the flagstones of the upper courtyard.
They were not shouting anymore, but the silence between them was sharp and poisonous as a rusted saw-blade. Garret was a thick-set man of fifty years with sawdust embedded in the pores of his red neck and a heavy leather apron rolled up around his waist. He walked three paces ahead, carrying a dented tin tea-canister in his left hand, his wooden clogs striking the stones with hard, furious raps. Martha followed close behind, her wool shawl pulled tight around her narrow shoulders, her face pale with exhaustion and her thin mouth drawn into a bitter, bloodless line.
“He’s in the kitchen,” Garret snarled over his shoulder without looking back. “Tomas told me at the mill. The thing that brought down Vane’s army works the soup kettle. It knows a liar the moment his teeth come apart.”
“I don’t care if it works the forge in the deep pit,” Martha retorted, her voice trembling with fury. “You took that brooch. My grandmother wore it at her wedding feast in the lower valley, and you traded it for two firkins of sour perry at the High Cross fair.”
