Velvet had never been trusted with a count before, and she was determined that she would not spoil it with flattery.
She sat at the Chamber table’s end, by the minute-book, with the tally-slate on her knee and a stub of chalk in her fingers and a look on her face that she hoped was dignified and suspected was merely pleased. Tallow had handed her the slate that morning without a word, with the Ink’s plain instruction written on its frame: the Chamberlain keeps the tally in the Lash’s absence, and the Clerk keeps the minutes, and the two shall not be confused. She had read it three times, and then had laughed out loud, which Tallow had pretended not to hear.
It was a great honour. It was also, she thought, a very small one, since the tally was only eight marks on a slate. But she had been the receiving-hall’s Chamberlain since the day the door first opened for an envoy, and she had never once been asked to do anything more consequential than open a door, and so she held the chalk in her fingers as though it were a ring of office, and tried not to look at Gaunt.
