Chapter 4: Greywatch

Greywatch sat on a black ridge in the far north, and the wind there tasted of iron.

Torin's men met us at the gate with torches and no questions.

They had been told their Warden had married a healer in a single night.

They looked at me the way soldiers look at a new horse.

I did not mind.

I had spent five years being looked at by strangers and being nobody.

"My wife," Torin said to the yard. "She'll have the east tower. Anyone who troubles her answers to me."

A tall old sergeant nodded and said nothing.

Inside, the keep was cold and tidy, a place that had been run by men for too long.

Torin gave me a room with a bed, a washstand, and a window full of white mountains.

"It's yours," he said. "I'll sleep in the war room. You needn't see me unless you wish it."

"Torin."

"We did what the law asked. You owe me nothing now."

I wanted to say something.

I did not know what, so I said nothing, and he left.

An hour later the screaming began.

I knew the sound before I reached the stairs.

It came from the garrison hall, where a dozen men lay on pallets with skin the color of old ash.

Their lips were cracked, and the veins in their necks glowed a faint dull red.

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