The fire that burned on its hearth was so low that the room was as cold as and far darker than the hall way in which he was standing. Inside the bed chamber's musty squalor no candles had been lit, or if they had, they had long ago guttered out.
It took another minute or so for Ian's eyes to adjust to the dimness. As they did, he held the pistol out before him, waiting for his target to materialize.
The flickering firelight first illuminated a private supper, laid out on a small table that had been set before it.
An untouched joint of meat lay on the platter, the grease in the congealing juices that were pooled around it iridescent. A loaf of bread had been broken into two portions, neither of which had been removed from the trencher they had been served on.
Ian's eyes were drawn next, unwillingly, to the bed.
