By evening, the great hall had begun to look less like a room recovering from war and more like the place Grimridge had chosen to make its stand.
The second table held. The broken lamp chain remained on the side bench under watch. The key chest sat by the north pillar where Nessa could touch it without hovering over it like a starving dog guarding a bone, though she still came close enough to make Mara mutter that if the chest ever grew legs it would run first from Nessa and only then from thieves. Oda kept the continuation ledger in her lap and corrected practical errors as if personal insult were a form of governance. Elin worked through the reserve names with the older storekeeper while bath women crossed with stores women through the open lines and the wall men changed watch in pairs instead of singles. The house had begun arranging itself around witness so naturally that the older patterns already felt ruder than useful.
