A Hunger Most Dark novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Surety

Davren's POV

The grass was cold when I woke on the hill, and the place beside me was empty.

I was on my feet before Gerrick reached the top of the rise.

"A warden's runner, my lord," he said. "They took her from Wool Street at three."

"For what?"

"Theft." He did not say anything else, because there was nothing else to say.

The Lower Hall lay under the Gilded Scales, and it had no windows.

It was a stone vault with one long table, benches along the walls, and a single oil lamp hanging over the clerk's desk.

The guilds used it for the cases they did not want the street to hear.

Eighty merchants sat in it that noon, in their furs and their good coats, with the smell of their pulses filling the room.

I stood at the accused's rail and breathed through my mouth.

The Master of the Scales sat at the head of the table with his round face smooth.

Corwin sat at his right hand, and he looked content.

"On the petition of House Rooke," the Master said. "A lord who cannot feed from any vial, and who is bound for blood to one woman, is a danger to the guilds."

"My lord Master," said Corwin, "there is an old custom for it."

I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"A hunger-bound lord must answer the guilds in the dark." He smiled at the room. "To show he can hold himself without his lamp."

The Master nodded.

Then the doors at the back opened, and two wardens brought Lenore in with her hands bound.

She had no coat, only the plain dark dress she had gone out in.

Her hair had come half down, and there was a bruise on her cheekbone.

Her eyes found mine and stayed there.

"The second matter," Corwin said gently. "My sister broke into my house last night and stole a letter from my desk."

"It was addressed to Dav," Lenore said.

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