The Charter was read in the Great Hall at the candle-clock, with the lamps trimmed high and the swept floor shining, and Idrin read it himself.
He did not stand to do it. He sat in the high chair with the Charter flat on the table in front of him, under his right hand, and the three lines of its text in his own clerk’s upright hand, and he read them aloud in the plain voice that had become his only voice since the spring. He did not use the cadence. He did not search for it. He read the words as a man reads the terms of a loan to the lender who has agreed to them, slowly, one clause at a time, giving each its weight.
“Velvet, Chamberlain of the Record, is awake again by this Charter. Her Form is recast from its mould in the Undercroft. No Form of the Hold is lent or Spent to pay for the casting. The Tithe is paid in iron, sixty weights, drawn from the Forge’s store and the Coldharbour bars, as the body’s own bread. The Chamber assents by Full Assent. The Regent does not expect to be thanked for it.”
