The gray rain of the high plateau beat steadily against the leaded lancet windows of the Sovereign Keep, washing streaks of winter coal-smoke down the dark limestone sills. Inside the royal bedchamber, the air tasted of boiled mint leaves, damp wool hangings, and the sour grease of sheep-animal fat tapers burning low in their copper sconces. There was no royal splendor in the room. Only the thin, whistling breath of an eighty-four-year-old sovereign lying under three layers of coarse gray blanket, waiting for his lungs to fill with fluid.
Tomas Reed stood three paces from the foot of the carved walnut bedstead, his boots resting squarely on the cold hearth flat stone slabs. His cart driver boots had iron heel-plates, worn thin by nine years of hauling pack-frames through the silt alleys of Low Bellwether. They made a dull scraping ring whenever he shifted his weight. His left wrist was buckled into its stiff calfskin brace, the blackened copper studs cold against his scarred forearm. Across his chest, the leather cross-harness that had carried Oren Voss’s pine chest across three provinces hung loose. He smelled of neatsfoot oil and dry river dust.
At the chamber door, Sile Rook kept watch. The scarred veteran didn’t lean against the door post. He stood upright, his oak tall body-shield planted between his boots and his right hand resting flat against the ash-wood wooden handle of his iron-wood hooked pruning blade. Outside in the gallery, the boots of the Palace Household Watch patrolled with…
