Grimridge slept in the great hall that night, or as close to sleep as a house at war could get under one roof.
The cots had been brought in before full dark and laid in ordered rows around the second table, with the hearth giving heat to one side and the wall men holding the doors at the other. The broken lamp ring was gone from the center beam, but the cut chain still hung as a warning from a hook by the north pillar where everyone could see it. The key chest sat within Nessa's reach. The continuation ledger lay under Elin's arm even now, though she had finally surrendered to sitting instead of standing. Oda had refused a private room with the same disdain she would have given a weak broth, and Mara, after three separate arguments with her own ankle and one with Cassian, had taken the cot nearest the hall board and announced that anyone who tripped over her in the night deserved the fall.
