The Warden brought the Charter into the Great Hall on the first warm morning of the year, and for once nobody at the table was watching the weather.
Tallow noticed that before anything else. The shutters stood open for the first time since the frost. Light came in off the marsh in a flat grey sheet and lay across the long board like a cloth nobody had thought to fold, and the Hands sat in it with their hands laid out in front of them, the way people sit when they have prepared an answer and are waiting to be asked the question.
He had the minute-book open at the foot of the table. He had written the date at the top of the page and the hour beneath it, and under those, Chamber sitting on a Charter, at the Warden’s motion. The Hold had been running on its own habits for two years, and habits were what it kept in place of a Chancery. He ruled the columns for the votes. Then he ruled one more, for the names of anyone who refused, and he looked at that empty column for longer than he meant to.
Idrin came in last, with the draft under his arm and the face of a man who has decided to be formal before he reached the door. He set the paper down and squared it with two fingers. “We find the matter ready to be put,” he said.
