Gaunt objected to the tally at the trestle table in the Kitchen-yard, at full volume, before the factor had finished tying her cloth. He objected to the cloth. He objected to the trestle, which was too short, and to the yard, which was too cold, and to the Kitchen, which had no business being in the middle of a Chamber matter when the Forge was short of coal. He had a loupe in one eye. He had taken it that morning from the drawer of the Chamberlain’s writing-box, where Velvet kept her good glass for reading flattering letters, and he had not yet been caught, which he regarded as a point in his favour.
“It is a forgery,” he said.
Mott kept her eyes on the stick. She was counting the notches on the cut stick again, under her breath, with her gloved finger moving along the wood. “It is a tally, Mister Gaunt.”
“It is a forged tally.” He bent over the stick with the loupe and breathed on the lens and wiped it on his sleeve. “Look at the wood. It is too clean. Two centuries in a Coldharbour cellar, damp as a fish-shed, and the bark is still on the back like it was cut last spring. No wood survives that. The mould would have eaten it. The worms would have had it. It is a modern stick with an old face, and somebody has scraped the old face clean with a blade to make it look…
