Chapter 6: What the Brand Costs

Nobody in the courtyard breathed.

Caspar stared at his empty hand, and then at the ring lying in the snow, split down the stone.

"You broke a Lorimer piece," he said.

"You laid a Warden's rune on a Grey Thorn scholar inside our walls," Ansgar said.

He said it quietly, with his bleeding hand held away from his coat.

"Every student here saw you do it.

"That's assault under the founders' charter, and Wardens have no say in it on this side of the gate."

"My mother will hear of this."

"I'm counting on it."

Somebody on the stairs began to clap, slowly.

Then a roasted chestnut sailed across the courtyard and bounced off Caspar's golden shoulder.

"Sorry," Hedda called. "Slipped."

Laughter ran round the walls.

Caspar turned and walked to the gate, his shoulders rigid, past two Wardens who didn't dare look at him.

At the carriage window Calista put her face in her hands.

The gate shut behind them.

I was already hauling Ansgar toward the cellar by his good arm.

"Don't," he said. "It's nothing."

"You're bleeding on my coat."

"It's a very small amount of blood."

"Sit," I said.

He sat.

The cellar furnace had burned down to red.

I found linen and a bowl of water and a jar of salve in the cupboard, and I set the lamp close.

He held out his left hand.

The brand had opened along its whole length, a ragged seam from his thumb to his wrist.

The skin around it was angry and swollen.

"What does it cost?" I said. "Tearing it open like that."

"The Oath keeps a mark on the one who swore it."

He watched me clean the wound.

"Your ring wasn't an oath. But it was made by the same hands, and it was fighting me for the same thing."

"You could have let me hold it."

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