But underneath it all, there was a tension in the room. A stranger would never have noticed it, but it was there, dark and silent as an undertow. No one spoke of taxes, or armies, or how they had begun to lock their doors at night. No one spoke of what had happened in the inn the night before. No one eyed the stretch of well-scrubbed wooden floor that didn’t show a trace of blood. Instead there were jokes and stories. A young wife kissed her husband,
