The Great Hall was lit for the Turn. The candle-clock stood at its place at the north end of the room, its brass hand just past the fourth mark, and the nine seats of the Chamber had been set in their half-ring beneath the high windows, each with its name-plate in the Ink and its chair pushed in square. Tallow sat in his place at the clerk’s table with the minutes open before him and the pen in his hand. He had written the date at the head of the leaf. He had written, beneath it, in the Ink, Lord Casimir Vale of Thornwick, admitted to the Chamber’s floor by the Mouth’s leave, to be heard on his count, and he was not yet sure whether he would regret it.
Vale stood at the lectern below the Chamber’s rail. He wore a dark blue coat with silver frogging, which had been made for a lord’s court and had since been wrapped in oiled cloth through a month of roads, and he had brushed it that morning until the silver shone. He had a sheet of paper in one hand, covered in figures, and a stub of charcoal in the other. He was looking at the room as a man looks at a field he means to plough.
