Gaunt objected.
He objected to the Ferryman having woken without a vote. He objected to the Ferryman having no drawer, and therefore no way of being counted in any honest ledger, since a Hand that kept nothing private could not be trusted to keep anything public. He objected to the Ferryman’s sentences, which were too short to bear the weight of a reasonable argument, and which he had now heard quoted at the Forge by three separate people, each of whom had used a different one to win a point. He objected to the candle-clock, which he said ran fast on the Ferryman’s side of the Hall, where the river could be heard through the wall, and slow on the Smith’s side, where the bellows were.
“It does not,” said Tallow, without looking up from the minutes. “It runs the same on both sides. It is a single clock.”
“Then it runs fast on the river,” said Gaunt, “and slow on the forge, and I will object to the Hold’s time as well when it is convenient for me.”
The Chamber sat in its arrangement of casks and benches with the morning light coming in through the long windows, grey and clean after the mist. The Warden was at the head of the table. He had his hands folded and his face was composed, and he had been composed, Gaunt thought, since the first bell, as a man is composed when he has not slept and has decided that sleep…
