The damp chill inside the Old Mill seemed to deepen as the midnight hour drew near. Outside, the swollen river surged past the limestone pilings, its black water gurgling through the rotting paddles of the undershot wheel with a heavy, sucking pulse.
Jon Hale did not move from the flour bin. His coat was damp at the shoulders, and the cold draft whistling through the gaps in the wall cut through his woolen waistcoat, but his thoughts were anchored to the small square of yellowed linen resting upon the wood.
Iven had taken three paces toward the rotting door, her hood pulled up, her hand already reaching for the iron latch. But she hesitated, her boots pausing on the grit of the threshold. She looked back over her shoulder, her dark eyes glittering in the shadow of her hood.
“You agreed quickly, Hale,” she said. Her voice was guarded, the sudden suspicion of an experienced soldier rising like a wall between them. “Too quickly for a man who claims he weighs every grain of barley before he sells it. When an officer promises thirty families safe passage through a siege, he usually asks for three bags of silver or a formal pledge of military service. You asked for nothing.”
