In the multitude of people is the kings honour; but in the want of the people is the destruction of the prince.
Though it was but late September, a wintry wind howled and battered at the ramparts of Tor Caerrorie, rattling the narrow, glazed windows in their frames and snapping to tatters the gules/azure MacRorie standard atop the tower keep.
Inside, the only daughter of the Earl of Culdi sat huddled over the manorial accounts beside a crackling hearth, wrapped in a fur-lined mantle against the chill of the deserted great hall, a brindle wolfhound asleep at her feet.
Torches guttered on the wall behind her, though it was not yet mid-afternoon, besmirching the stone walls with soot. Smoke mingled with the scent of mutton roasting in the nearby kitchens, and a rushlight cast a yellow glow across the table where she worked. It was with some relief that she finally marked the last entry with her cipher and laid down her quill. Umphred, her father’s bailiff, heard her sigh and came to collect the rolls with a bow.
“That completes the accounts for last quarter, mistress. Is all in order?”
Evaine MacRorie, chatelaine of Tor Caerrorie since her mother’s death seven years before, favored Umphred with a gentle smile. The wolfhound raised his great head to look at the bailiff, then went back to sleep.
