A particular quality lived in that room.
Not silence exactly.
More like the specific absence of unnecessary sound that came from people who had learned a long time ago that the less you said in rooms like this the more weight the things you did say carried.
Long, dark and old in the way that things became old when they had witnessed enough, the table held six families and one empty seat that everyone present had already noted and filed away without comment.
Roland Blade sat at the head.
He was not the oldest man in the room but he carried himself like he was.
Broad across the shoulders, his suit dark and cut well, his hair gone silver and worn close.
His hands rested flat on the table and his eyes moved around the room with the slow patience of a man taking an inventory he had taken many times before.
Behind his chair one man stood. Still, hands clasped, watching everything and reacting to nothing.
Victor Rothschild sat to his left.
