At the candle-clock the Mouth passed, and Velvet took it with a bow that began at the shoulder and finished at the floor.
The Turn was the oldest ritual the Hold had, older than the Charter of Shares and older, Tallow claimed, than the first Writ, since the first Writ had been a shout and a shout needed a mouth. The candle-clock stood on its brass table at the Great Hall’s head. Its wax was marked in bands, and when the flame touched the third band the Hand whose seat was next in the order rose, and the Hand whose turn had run stood down, and the body’s voice passed across the table from one to the other with a small formal nod. It took a breath. It did not take longer. Velvet had never once let it take longer, because a Turn that lasted was a Turn that could be argued with, and she did not like to argue. She liked to be heard.
“Your Highness,” she said, to the prince, across the table, in the warm voice that the Mouth gave her and nobody else. “Your brow is more persuasive than the Bench’s seal. I have seen it at the arch, and I have seen the wax, and I should not like to have to choose between them in a court of law. Your plainness is the finest courtly instrument Ormhold has ever possessed. It was forged in the Chancery, I think, and then polished by hard use.”
