Ossane read the terms aloud at the candle-clock, as she had said she would, and she read them in the Chancery’s own voice first.
She stood at the foot of the Chamber table with a single candle at her elbow and the green-bound paper open on a stand that Tallow had brought up from the gatehouse. Her voice was low and clear and entirely without ornament. She read each clause as it was written, with the numbers and the cross-references and the proper names in the order the Chancellor had set them, and the Hall listened to every word in the same silence that a congregation keeps when the reader is one of its own. Idrin sat at the head of the table with his hands folded on the minute-book and did not move. Beside him, at the Mouth, Pell sat very upright with her arms crossed over her apron, and her face said that she had been told the Chancery’s voice was a thing that could be borne, and was determined to bear it.
The Hands listened. Harrow had the cord across his knees and his thumb resting on a knot and did not count. Ysra had her warning-book shut and her eyes on the advocate’s mouth, as though the words might come out wrong at any moment and she would need to be ready. Korrin stood at the window with his back to the room and his jaw set so hard that Idrin could see the muscle working…
