A Private Drawer opens only by a Knot, and a Knot is the owner’s own consent, given in front of the Hands who are present to witness it. Everyone in the Hold knew that. Every child in Lowgate could say it. The rule had been broken once in the Hold’s history in a way that had cost a Chamber its quiet for a season, and so the rule was now spoken aloud, every time, before anyone’s drawer was touched, as a sentry says the password before he lifts the bar.
Tallow said it. He said it in the plain Chamber voice, standing by the shelf with the minute-book open beside the brass bell, and when he had finished he looked at the surveyor on her low stool and waited.
Lune did not get up. Lune took the Knot from the rod’s hook, where the cord had been hanging all morning, and held it up so that the Hands could see it. It was a plain cord of Lowgate hemp, knotted once at one end and left loose at the other, and Lune had tied the first knot the night before, in the house’s dark, to be sure it would not slip. The Knot was not complicated. The consent of a drawer’s owner is a single pull, given once, in plain view, and Lune gave it the way Harrow ties a count, with one quick sure movement of the wrist that drew the loose end taut against the knot and held…
