The smell arrived in the bakehouse three paces before the men crossed the threshold.
Elin Hale did not need to lift her head from the wooden trencher where she was grinding dried comfrey root to know what that smell meant. It was the thick, greasy odor of scorched fat and wet wool that she had learned to identify ten years ago on the hospital wagons outside the capital. It was the smell of men who had stood too close to an alchemical kettle or caught the tail of a fire-ball thrown over a palisade.
Then the latch clicked, and Jon stepped inside, his left shoulder jammed hard against the jamb to keep his feet under him.
“Over here,” Elin said. Her voice was flat, level, and stripped of every drop of pity. She pointed with the stone pestle toward the low oak bench by the flour bins, where she had laid out clean sheepskins over the bare wood. “Sit down before you drop on my scrubbed floor, Jon Hale.”
Jon did not argue. He crossed the flagstones with stiff, deliberate strides, his boots dragging slightly in the sawdust, and sank onto the bench. His right arm was held across his stomach, swaddled in a sodden gray cloak that dripped brown water onto his knees. Behind him, Sister Oda slipped into the room, her habits stained with soot, carrying a copper pail of steaming water and an iron kettle.
