Chapter 10: The Same Room

Neither of them moved.

Thessaly's fingers were still in his hair, and the clerk's chair creaked on the other side of the door.

"Good morning," Eskil said, without any tone at all.

"Good morning."

She took her hand back one finger at a time, as if it were something she might drop.

"Cold," she said.

"Of course."

She was out of the bed and into her wrap before he could sit up.

She did not look at him until the Inspector knocked, and then only to see that he was already dressed and perfectly composed.

The Inspector made a mark on his tablet.

"Shared quarters," he said, "confirmed."

On the second night the Keep was asleep when the wall bell began to ring.

It rang twice, stopped, and rang again in the broken way that meant the gate was down.

Eskil was out of bed before she had her eyes open, with his sword in his hand and his shirt half on.

"Stay here," he said, and then caught himself. "Stay here, if you will."

"I will bar the door," Thessaly said. "Take Nerissa to the east tower if you can reach her."

"Nerissa is already in the east tower with your father and a poker," he said, and he was gone.

She did not stay.

She went down the back stair with a candlestick in her hand, and found the Great Hall full of smoke and the clash of steel.

A dozen raiders in dark cloaks fighting Eskil's men between the pillars.

She saw Eskil at the center of them.

He fought without shouting and without waste, and the ones who reached him did not get up.