Chapter 6: The King's Reading

The king's Reading was held on the first Monday of every month in the great hall at Highcastle.

Any recruit of the Crown Watch could stand and speak to him there, in front of the court.

Nobody ever did.

Linnea walked up the long aisle with Edda two steps behind her and a hundred courtiers watching.

The hall was full of thoughts.

She had braced for it, and it still pressed hard on her.

At the far end, on a low dais, King Osmund sat in a plain dark coat with a gold pin at the collar.

He was a white-haired man with a trimmed grey beard and a patient face.

Beside the dais stood Major Valerius in his best grey coat, with both captains at his shoulder.

He met her eyes and smiled.

She is mad, he thought. Nobody will believe her.

And on the right of the king, in the black coat of the Lord Commander, stood Theron Draycott.

Linnea's feet stopped on the stone.

He was taller than she remembered.

A pale scar ran through his left eyebrow that had not been there a year ago.

He stood with his hands behind his back and looked straight ahead at nothing.

She listened for him.

There was no sound at all.

Around him a hundred minds hummed and argued, and where he stood there was only a flat quiet.

She had heard a boy's broken wrist and a cook's grief and a major's ledger of women.

She could not hear Theron Draycott think.

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