The empty salt barrel by the cold bake-oven was still wet where Cael’s knees had rested against the staves.
Jon Hale stood in the alcove, his soot-streaked face bathed in the dim gray light from the high clerestory window. On the floorboards, half-hidden beneath the sawdust, a trail of dark, sticky drops led toward the back scullery door. It was not the thin, watery serum of a scald; it was arterial red, thick with iron, dripping from where the knight’s gouged palm had clutched the edge of the returner’s seal.
“He went down through the coal chute,” Sister Oda said, stepping up behind Jon with an unlit tallow candle in her hand. “Five minutes ago. He didn’t take his helmet. Just his sword.”
“He didn’t need a helmet,” Jon said. His right arm was tucked tight against his ribs in the stiff linen sling, the comfrey poultice throbbing with a dull, sickening heat. With his left hand, he lifted a heavy iron storm-lantern from the tool shelf, striking a flint against the steel striker until the oil wick caught with a blue flicker. “Watch the ward, Oda. Keep Elin away from the cellar stairs.”
Jon pushed through the low oak door into the narrow passage behind the ovens.
