Wren was the only voice in the Hold that did not belong to a Hand, and for the first time since the Writ of Lodging had been read over her in the Chamber, she felt the difference in her bones. The Hands were over the Caul. The gate was shut. The wall stood with no one on it but the lodgers, and the lodgers were not allowed to say the body says or the Chamber decided or the Warden has assented, because they had no seats and no votes and no name in the Roll. They could only sit where they were put, and keep what they were given, and wait.
So she sat in the gatehouse with the Register’s box open on the table beside her, and the lamp lit, and her coat buttoned to the chin, and she kept the gate.
It was not a hard job. She had thought, when Idrin first asked her to take it, that there would be a great deal to do. There was a bar to check at dusk and at dawn, and a windlass to grease, and a bell-rope to test in case anyone came up the road at night who needed to be let in. There was a wicket to open for the Lowgate carters and close again after them, and a tally to keep of who came and went. But the bar was already down and the windlass was already greased, because Brannoc had done both before he went…
