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With his new velvet surcoat draped over his shoulder, the pouch of silver tucked into his belt and the bundle of paper in hand Gavin sets off from his tiny cell in the wizard’s tower and down the narrow corridor that sets the acolytes’ quarters off from the apartments of the higher ranking clerks that make up the old wizard’s retinue. Down the twisty stone steps of the tower he goes to the lower levels. At the base of the long flight of steps the bright light floods in from outdoors. Gavin squints and sneezes in the lazy columns of dust that twirl and drift in the warm sunlight. He had forgotten how cold and musty the tower had first seemed to him on his arrival. Stepping out into the light of day to shake the chill from his bones, Gavin notices the yard seems unusually quiet. When he had arrived yesterday and on his previous visits to the tower there was always quite a hubbub on the castle grounds, what with the steady stream of tradesmen and laborers coming and going and the constant drilling of new recruits for the gathering militia. Today must be on off day or holiday perhaps, for the largest crowd in the yard is a herd of small pigs that two boys are having a hard time corralling into their pen. There is no bugle or drum to be heard and no sergeant shouting their commands to a poorly coordinated mass of soldiers learning to march in formation. For that matter the builders must be taking their lunch because there is no scraping of shovels to be heard or sawing or chopping. There are a few old men shoveling dung onto a cart by the south wall but none of the masons’ stone blocks are being hoisted into place where the top course has not yet been laid. “Perhaps they are all down in the village today,” Gavin thinks to himself, but that line of reasoning is cut short by the growl of his stomach. Back across the yard he goes in search of his breakfast.
