Extrait du chapitre 1 en anglais
A Reunion Already Spent
By nine in the morning, Quentin Hushford had moved the same vase of flowers six times and spent the reunion fee twice.
The first spending had been actual: wages, roof tiles, the kitchen chimney, and a new bearing for the yard pump. The second was taking place in his imagination, where eighty crowns remained available to return to the festival committee if any of his oldest friends failed to arrive.
In that account, the money was doing splendidly.
In the real one, Mara had bought boots.
“Leave the flowers,” she said.
“They obstruct the view of the hearth.”
“They obstruct the crack beside the hearth. That’s their employment.”
Quentin withdrew his hands.
Mara crossed the public room with a stack of clean breakfast plates balanced against her apron. She had worked at *The Slayer’s Rest* for eleven years, which was long enough to distinguish a useful instruction from a proprietor having feelings at the furniture.
“You’re wearing the sword, then?”
“For the ceremony.”
“Mind it on the chairs. We’ve only just paid for those.”
“They’re not new chairs.”
“They’ve got all their legs. That’s new for us.”
He looked after her as she pushed through to the kitchen. Her boots made a firm, unfamiliar sound on the boards. For three months he had watched her avoid the puddle by the scullery door because the left sole of her old pair admitted water. She had never mentioned it. He had never found a dignified way to mention it either.
Now the roof did not leak, the pump turned without screaming, and Mara had boots. Whatever else happened today, those things had been worth doing.
Above the hearth hung a painted shield bearing the Five of the Fable: Quentin with his sword raised, Halden with an axe, Rufin surrounded by a tasteful quantity of lightning, Jessamine pointing toward a mountain, and Gwyneth blessing a kneeling child who appeared to be suffering chiefly from an inconvenient position.
The artist had given them all the same excellent knees.
Quentin adjusted his sword belt. The sword tipped against a chair.
From the kitchen, Mara said, “Heard that.”
Outside, Ashdown was putting on its twentieth anniversary.
Bunting stretched across the street in red and gold. A boy on a ladder was fastening paper flames around the sign of the cooper’s shop. Two council laborers dragged a cart full of heroic shields toward the square, where the brass band had begun arguing with itself in public. Bells rang from Saint Orlan’s tower. Someone was already selling hot pies, and someone else had decided the appropriate answer to breakfast was a drum.
The inn’s windows carried fresh gilt lettering:
**THE FIVE RETURN**
Underneath, in smaller letters:
**ROOMS AVAILABLE FOR THE NEW ROYAL MOUNTAIN RETREAT**
Quentin had approved both announcements. At the time, they had seemed mutually supportive.
On the desk in his little office lay the committee’s contract, four replies, and a folded notice from the lender.
Halden had agreed to attend, provided attendance did not include “unadvertised feats of strength, endorsements, or the lifting of officials.”
Rufin had agreed to provide the anniversary spectacle, subject to suitable space, dry storage, and no municipal interference with his machinery.
Jessamine had written that she would be in Ashdown that morning. Quentin had counted this as an acceptance because there was nowhere else useful to count it.
Gwyneth’s note asked whether the committee understood that people still became ill during parades.
He had counted that as an acceptance too.
The lender’s letter was considerably less open to interpretation. His temporary extension ran to the end of the harvest quarter. A longer arrangement could be considered in light of confirmed future trade, particularly the anticipated custom arising from the Crown’s mountain development.
Fin de cet extrait. Le chapitre se poursuit dans le roman complet.