Neshrael had lived so long in silent places that he had learned to hear through slight sounds to slighter others. He heard far out, past the dull rumble on the slatted roof to the wide loch hissing beneath the rain. He heard the wind as it came and the wind as it went, wuthering through windows, rushing through thatch, whistling through rushes. In silent places he made meditation out of all soft and sibilant sounds.
Anything that made the Duke’s grim steward smirk could not be amusing for anyone but him. It seemed so obviously true that calling it a foregone conclusion was an insult to logic. It might have been an axiom.
Githa clunked the lid down and stared, as though watching a pot could make it full.
No one answered Condal’s knock, and after holding her breath to the count of ten, she let it out in a sigh of relief. She would not have minded facing the Duke, but the Duke’s grim steward was among the most forbidding men she had ever seen.
Saturdays were always busy days for the royal steward, but this was the anniversary of the old Queen’s death, and the King would not be bothered except in dire need.
Ralf had done all he could to prepare their morning’s work for Monday, but now he found himself in the eerily unfamiliar situation of having a Saturday afternoon free.
Margaret appeared as small and demure as her sister when she sat, but when she stood she had a remarkable coltlike length to her legs. Over the last half-year she had finally learned the knack of them, and she had a graceful, loping stride that was fair to see and carried her far. She rarely walked when she was free to run.
Egelric could not help but slide his hands back beneath the table after every bite. By the brighter light of candles they seemed unforgivably brutish: broad and heavy, with their thick, bark-like skin and their knobby knuckles like whorled cankers on a tree.
“Oh! Sir Egelric!” Irene cried from on high. “Wait here!”
Egelric shouted, “Wait!” after her, but she scampered down the hall with such rabbit-like haste that she must have feared he would bolt for the door the instant she had her back turned. He might have indeed, but sadly the idea came to him too late.
Egelric had not recalled the date until he had seen the torches of the tower shining below the horizon, twinkling like gloomy stars in the Underworld’s upside-down sky. Last night had been the anniversary of Judith’s death. He had arrived perhaps at the very hour.
Cearball snorted in disgust and let his foot slide off his thigh and onto the floor. It seemed he could never be interrupted except at some ignoble task: blowing his nose, or picking a scab, or cleaning underneath his toenails with the point of his knife.
“Hey! It made it 4th on the sin list!” *highlites*
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