Chapter 15: Numbered

Astrid's POV

Someone knocked on my door before the sun was up.

I had not slept, so I was dressed, and I opened it with my boot knife in my hand.

Alaric stood in the corridor with a black book held out in both hands.

He did not come in.

"The chancellor's daybook," he said. "My shield-man took it from his rooms last night."

"I read it all. Then I came here, before I did anything else with it."

I looked at the book and then at his face.

His eyes were red at the rims, and he was still wearing yesterday's shirt.

"Why bring it to me?" I said.

"Because you told me what you'd do if I ever kept a thing from you."

I took the book.

I opened it standing in the doorway, and it fell open to the page the spine had been bent on the most.

The columns of numbers were there, and the dates, and the towns.

Every spring since the old king's death, there was a license renewal.

Under the last one, in red wax, was Alaric's own seal.

"I signed it," he said. "I didn't read it. I'll answer for that in whatever court you like."

"Not yet."

"No."

"There's a name here I know," I said, and put my finger on a word in the margin of the last page. "East wharf. The salt warehouse."

"That's where this year's stock waits for the river barges."

"Then that's where I'm going."

"The Council said you stay in the castle."

"The Council said I stay under guard," I said. "I'm taking my guard."

He nearly smiled.

"Beryl has the thirty horsed in the yard."

"Of course she does."

"Astrid," he said, as I went past him. "I'm not coming."

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