He awoke the next morning a hollow man. He lay in bed wondering whether the void he felt was due to the previous night’s expunging, or whether it was the realisation of the inevitability of his situation. It was probably a little of both.
He got out of bed and found Brocknor’s bed empty.
“Where’s he gone?” he asked Mari a moment later.
She was sweeping the entrance. “He went out early this morning.”
“How did he seem?”
Mari continued sweeping. “I don’t know. I just happened to see him leave through the gate as I came out to sweep the front steps.”
Jahl wondered what Brocknor could be up to. It wasn’t unusual for him to go into town, or even to visit the property he knew Brocknor owned in the countryside. If they hadn’t argued the previous night, he wouldn’t have given it a second thou
