On the second day of the Writ, Tallow stood up to give the Hold’s first testimony in his own name, and he had prepared it the way he prepared everything, in order, with the ranges written in the margin where they could be seen.
He had spent the night on it. He had written the first sentence six times and crossed out five. The sixth read: The body is a citizen by the first line of the Register. He was pleased with it. It was true to the range, which was as wide as the Register’s own margin, and it gave the Bench nothing it could take away with a single word from its gloss.
He had not yet said the second sentence when he felt the Mouth go.
It did not go like a gate swinging. It went like a shove between two ribs, from the inside, and it was done before he had time to brace against it. The Hall’s benches tilted in his sight. The lamp on the table jumped. Somebody at the forge end of the room had put a hand on the back of his chair and was pushing forward with the whole of his weight, and the voice that came out of Tallow’s mouth was not Tallow’s voice at all. It was loud and rough, a voice that had been shouting at iron since the first day of the Forge, and it said, in the body’s voice, “—and it is a fixture of the…
