A few servants, who had to this point kept as far as they could from the Electress, peeled their backs off the wall of the dining-hall and scuttled inwards toward the offending fixture, knees flexed and hands raised. Sophie ignored them and tilted the rapier this way and that, letting the light of the surviving candles trickle up and down the blade. "No wonder you could not wrest it out of its scabbard," she said, "it was rusted in place, wasn’t it?"