Chapter 20: The Ledger

Theron Draycott sat on the stone floor of a Highcastle cell with his back to the wall.

He had given up his sword in the yard so that six hundred recruits would not die trying to keep it.

They had taken Linnea out through a different gate.

He had not been allowed to see where.

He was not counting.

There was no need.

Five doors and a long stair lay between them, and if he said the rhyme now it would only be for himself.

One for the river.

He stopped.

A year of reciting it had worn a groove in him, and he could feel where it was.

Beyond the door, boots came down the passage.

They stopped at his cell.

A key turned.

The woman in the grey gloves stood in the doorway with a lantern, and no guard behind her.

"Lord Commander," she said. "Get up. We have an hour."

He rose.

"Where is she?"

"Two floors up, in a room with a bed and a bolted door. She is unhurt."

The woman held out her gloved hand.

"The king has gone to his chambers, and his clerk is at supper. I hold the keys to the east vaults, and nobody has ever dared to ask me why."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I have been in the king's head for eleven years."

Her voice shook, very slightly.

"I heard him think of a girl from the Wend, whose family he planned to keep for her good behaviour. I have heard him think it of others."

She looked at him.

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