Chapter 23: Cold Fen

The great hall of Cold Fen smelled of peat smoke and wet wool.

I had grown up in it, and I had never once sat in the high chair at the end.

Now I sat there, with the fen people packed along the benches below me.

Thane stood against the far wall.

He had said only one thing on the road.

"It's your table."

He kept his word.

He folded his arms and leaned against the stones and said nothing at all.

An old woman at the front stood up first, with a cane and a basket on her arm.

"Alpha's daughter," she said. "The wall."

"What about it?"

"It was built on Stanmore silver," she said. "We heard the Moot called the treaty void."

Her cane shook on the floor.

"We heard Stanmore will want its stones back."

A frightened murmur ran down the benches.

A hundred families lived behind that wall, and every one of them was thinking of spring.

"Then let Stanmore come and say it to me," I said.

"They have," said a dry voice from the door.

The old man in the blue coat walked in on his stick, with four elders behind him.

The benches fell silent.

He crossed the floor, stopped in front of my chair, and looked up at me.

"Lady Marrow," he said.

"Elder of Stanmore."

"I've come about the river."

"I thought you might."

He drew a rolled paper from his sleeve.

"This treaty gave Stanmore the river rights of Cold Fen in return for the river wall," he said.

"The Moot has voided the marriage, and the paper now stands on nothing."

He tapped it against his palm.

"My council says we should take back the stone we paid for."

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