Cedric sees Alred
The fourth animal sound came again: a low, unearthly moan that made the bones of Cedric’s face hum in sympathetic harmony. He closed his eyes and listened. Now he remembered where he had heard it.
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Cedric sees his father
In spite of twelve years, five months, and thirteen days worth of warnings about playing on stairs, Cedric could not resist getting into another wrestling match with Colban on the way down, battling for the right to go second.
Leofric meets his match
Leofric did not turn his eyes from that ghastly face, but he laid a hand on Hetty’s fur-capped shoulder and pushed her gently away.
Alred sees
Leofric could tell at once that Hetty had just taken down her hair: the unknotted ends were still damp and heavy from her bath hours before, and like a flower first opening, her hair was shedding all at once the perfume it had stored in its coils and folds.
Leofric counts the years
Leofric spread out his hands on his thighs and counted his fingers. When he ran out of fingers, he began counting the gaps between them. He stopped at thirteen.
Alred begins to see
Little though he liked Cedric as a possible suitor for Gwynn—for little he liked the idea of having mutual “grandrunts” with Leofric—Alred was nevertheless annoyed to see Eirik’s blond head rear up in the place where Cedric’s had been for a moment: beside his daughter’s.
Alred sees through a smile
Hetty wore the taut smile of a man trying to hold a knife between his teeth without cutting into his cheeks. Could this be the smile she had forced onto her face these last days? Could he truly have been so blind?
Gwynn sees a smile
Almost from the start of the dance, there had been spotty outbreaks of snorts and stifled giggles, ostentatious coughs, and even the occasional gust of laughter. But it was all happening at the far end of the line, nearest the fire, and Alred could not see the cause.
Conrad is burdened
“Quit, quit, quit,” Baldwin whimpered anxiously. “Somebody’s coming!”
Colban delivered a last rap to the top of Cedric’s head and released him.
“Ach! It’s her ladyship again!” he laughed. “Now we’re in for it. We cleaned our plates, Mama!”
Leofric issues his command
As soon as Leofric stopped rushing Hetty along ahead of him, her spirit collapsed like sails.
“It is so cold here!” she blubbered. It was also dark; it was also silent; it was also still. He had taken her to a place where her straining senses could latch onto nothing more than the chill of the air and his looming presence.
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“Every day you spend thinking about going to see her is a day you’ll not be spending at her side. And no gentle god will be coming along later and tacking those days back onto the end of your life. Nor onto hers.”
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