Chapter 31: Lot Nine Again

The Claiming Hall was full again, and this time nobody laughed.

Linus stood in the wings in the black coat, and the ring with both his names sat warm on his left hand.

The seats were not the same seats.

The Warborn boxes along the front were half empty, and the cheap tiers above them had been thrown open to anyone who came.

Drones filled the upper rows from wall to wall.

Some had brought children.

Some had brought bread, and some had brought nothing at all, and they sat looking down at the stage that was now theirs.

"Forty thousand," Wystan murmured at his shoulder. "And the doors are still open at the back."

"Good," Linus said.

Ambrose had gone down the front aisle ten minutes ago.

He had walked past the empty box where he had sat for seven years and had climbed into the middle tiers, beside the baker from the ward.

Linus could see the black head of him there, with the baker's loaf in his lap.

Perrin sat on his other side, with his arm out of the sling for the first time.

The old man from the reading house sat behind them, in his good cap.

The announcer came out, the same one, in the same grey coat.

He stood a long moment at the old microphone.

The great screens flickered and showed his face, and the Hall went quiet.

"By order of the council," he read, "the Claiming is ended. This is its final session. No one will be offered today."

A sound ran through the tiers, low and long.

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