Evening settled over the audience chamber, gradual and inevitable. The cold reached up through the stone floor before the last light disappeared from the high windows while torches lined both walls, casting almost as much shadow as light.
The stone gave up the warmth it had gathered during the day almost the moment the sun slipped beyond the walls, leaving the room cold again.
Beorn sat on the crude, iron-banded throne atop its low dais. The chair had been built to serve its purpose, not to impress anyone, just like everything else in the chamber. There were no tapestries, no carved railings, nothing to catch a visitor's eye or suggest wealth.
Heinrich had proposed to change that before the audience. A few hangings, some exquisite throne with carved arms. Beorn had refused, and he saw no reason to change his mind.
