Chapter 28: The Answer

The Hall lit the Ring from the east end. A steward with a taper went along the stand front at a slow walk, and each ward took the flame and the Current woke under it, brass and then gold, and the sand began to shine. Kael watched from the passage gate with his left palm on the gate rail. The stands were full to the back wall. Nine thousand people had come with cushions and children and heels of bread, and every household had brought a tin: a fat lamp with a dented rim, unlit, held in a lap like a loaf to be cut later. The smallest children in the front row had been given the tins to mind. The custom wanted the Ring's lamp lit first and theirs after, hand to hand along the benches. The Hall had been told about the crack. Marlowe had told it on…