She set the charger on the rack. Thirty-two done. A hundred and sixty-eight to go.
The morning crawled.
At the hearths, Garrad's shouting had shifted from the spit-boy to the river-pike. Something about the skin not crisping. Mab knew the problem without seeing it. He'd put the fish too close to the flame, trying to rush it, and now the outside was charring while the inside stayed raw.
She knew because she'd watched Hester do pike a hundred times. You wanted the fish a hand's length from the coals, nocloser. You wanted the skin to tighten first, then crisp. You wanted patience, which Garrad did not have and never would.
But she said nothing. She had learned years ago not to say anything.
The charger in her hands was one of the older ones, the pewter gone soft at the edges from decades of use.
"Mab." Tibbs was back, hovering. "Cook wants to know if you can do the serving bowls after."
"Tell him yes." Mab didn't look up. The serving bowls were easier than the chargers, but there were forty of them and they'd been sitting in the back storeroom for months, growing a film of dust and neglect.
Tibbs nodded and went.
Somewhere in the kitchen yard a dog started barking. Not the kennel-dogs, which barked all day at nothing. One of the yard-dogs, the brown bitch by the gate, who barked at people coming up the lane. Mab heard it without listening. The lane brought a dozen people a day this time of year—carters, the smith's boy, the woman with eggs.
The bitch kept barking.
A second dog joined her. Then a third. From the yard, a faint voice. One of the gate-men, she thought, calling something she could not make out. The bitch went up an octave.
Then the bell.
Not the supper bell or the chapel bell. The one in the gate tower, the small high one, the one she had heard exactly twice in her life and both times for drills.
It rang once. Stopped. Rang again. Did not stop.
In the kitchen everyone lifted their heads at the same moment. Garrad turned toward the yard door. Annie's mouth opened. The room went, for the first time all morning, quiet.
The bell rang and rang.
Mab set the charger down on the rim of the trough. Put her wet hands flat on the stones. Stood up.
The yard door banged open and one of the gate-men came through it at a run, his face the color of whey.
"Orcs," he said. "Orcs on the lane. Dozens of them. Armed."
For a breath, nobody moved.
Then Garrad said, "Shut the doors," and the kitchen broke.
Chapter 2
Garrad shoved past the gate-man and ran for the yard. Two of the spit-boys followed him. Annie screamed, a high thin sound that cut through the noise, and then she stopped screaming and started sobbing, her hands over her face.
Mab crossed the kitchen in six strides, caught Annie by the arm, and pulled. The girl came, stumbling, still silent in that terrible way that meant the scream was stuck somewhere in her chest.
"Tibbs." Mab's voice came out flat and strange. "With me. Now."
He grabbed Annie's other arm and together they hauled her toward the back of the kitchen, away from the yard door where the gate-man was still standing with his mouth working and no useful words coming out.
The root cellar was closest. It was also the first place anyone would look.
The flour bins were deeper in, tucked against the east wall. Too exposed. The lids didn't lock. A child could open them.
Mab's feet kept moving while her mind sorted through the options. Twenty-seven years in this kitchen. She knew where the stones were loose. She knew where the walls sweated in summer. She knew where the rats got in, which meant she knew where the gaps were.
