Chapter 160

The council of Ellisar came up the river road on the tenth day, nine of them on grey horses, with the snow going off the fields on either side in long brown stripes and the ditches running full.

They came into the great hall at noon with the doors open behind them, as the law was now, and the thaw wind came in after them smelling of mud and wet thatch. The eldest had the table taken off the floor altogether. The wolves of the council stood along the east wall and the elves along the west, and in the middle there was only the bare flagged floor, and a brazier, and one chair.

The chair was for Isadora. Nobody else sat.

Nobody, that is, until the King came.

***

He came in late, by the side door, on two sticks, and I heard the hall hear him before I turned.

Issen had said an hour, and only if he was carried down the stairs. He had not been carried. Finn walked a step behind him with his hands ready and not touching, and Caspian came along the side of