The third watch of the night was always the coldest in the river valley, when the heat of the preceding day had completely leached into the shale and the dawn remained three hours beneath the eastern horizon.
Jon Hale sat in the heavy ash armchair he had dragged from the corner, his back pressed against the brickwork of the kitchen chimney stack. The masonry retained a steady, gentle warmth from the banked embers below, but the air six inches from the floor was as sharp as river ice. Across his woolen knees lay his skinning knife, its broad carbon-steel blade catching the dim amber gleam of the dying tallow candle.
Two paces away, resting upon the deal table, the earthenware bowl was quiet.
The two crossed bars of hoop-iron lay level across the clay rim, their cold, dark surfaces frosted with faint beads of condensed steam. Beneath the iron, the four inches of muddy water had ceased their boiling, turning still as a winter pond. The three floating gold bars hovered just below the crossbars, their edges glowing with a subdued, stubborn luminescence that cast three narrow slivers of amber across the ceiling joists.
On the rope bedstead, Sir Cael Ardent slept.
