Virtue

Начало книги

The quill scratched on the parchment. A log spat in the grate. The guttering tallow candle flared as a needle of night wind pierced the ill-fitting shutters.

The man at the table paused in his writing. He dipped his nib in the inkstand and looked around the dim, shabby apartment. The paneled walls were cracked and inlaid with years of grime, the floor sticky beneath his booted feet. He huddled into his cloak and glanced toward the fire. It was low in the grate, and he bent to pick up a log from the basket. Then he let it rail back again. It was an extravagance he didn't need. Not now… not in a very few minutes.

He turned back to his writing, and the scratching of the quill was the only sound. Then he reached for the sander and dusted the epistle. Without reading what he had written, he folded the paper with scrupulous care and neatness, dropped a thick blob of candlewax on the folds, and pressed his signet ring into the seal. He sat for a minute, gazing fixedly at the initials imprinted in the wax: G D. Then he wrote again on the front of the sealed paper.

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