The silence in the courtyard of St. Jude was so absolute that the patter of freezing drizzle on limestone sounded like falling shot.
Sir Cael Ardent stood transfixed, the triangular point of his hunting dagger trembling against his jugular, his knuckles bone-white. The bead of blood on his neck had widened, tracing a thin crimson line down into the silver rings of his chainmail hauberk.
Jon Hale did not retreat. He stood two paces away, his bare right forearm resting across his chest, the five white bands of scar tissue gleaming in the grey mist.
“Speak to him, Cael,” Jon said, his voice quiet, steady, and clear. “You have your tactical arithmetic. You have your casualty ratios from twelve cycles of war in a five-hundred-year-old furnace. Tell Corporal Renn why his boys must be unmade.”
Cael’s gaze remained locked on the old watchman standing behind the iron pickets. He tried to swallow, his throat clicking dryly against the blade.
“Renn has two boys,” Jon continued, his words dropping into the quiet courtyard with relentless, rhythmic certainty. “Eban and Tomas. Seven winters old. In the sixth cycle, when the red cough hit the cellar, Renn gave his own wool blanket to a weaver’s daughter and stood watch on the north wall in his shirt sleeves. He didn’t ask for a medal. He didn’t ask for an imperial pension. He did it because a watchman in Harth protects the town that feeds him.”
