Idrin had meant to answer the question at once. He had carried it down the bank in his head since the first light, the way Tallow carried a column that would not add, and he had rehearsed the answer on the path from the gate while the lodgers watched him pass, and again on the bench while Tallow read the Register’s first line into the river. It was not a long answer. He had made it short on purpose, so that it could not be taken apart by a clerk and put back together in the wrong order. It began with the words I do not know, and then it went on to say what he did know, which was less than he had hoped and more than the Chancery would like.
He drew breath to begin it. He saw Halse lift one gloved hand, very slightly, as a man does when he is about to make a courtesy, and he stopped.
“Before the Warden answers,” said Halse, “the commission would like to offer him a precedent.”
It was said pleasantly. The Chancellor had a voice that could make even a threat sound like a kindness, and he used it now, quietly, as though he were offering a glass of wine at the end of a long dinner. He leaned forward with his elbows on the grey cloth and his fingers loosely steepled under his chin, and he looked, with an expression of genuine and warm regret, at the far…
