The Chamber had decided that the mason would be heard first among the Hands, because the question the Chancery had brought up the Lessary Road was, in the end, a question about walls. Tallow had put it in the minutes that way at the Turn. Whether the walls of Ormhold are the Hold’s, or the Mantle’s, or the Crown’s, and by what measure. Harrow had read the line over Tallow’s shoulder and had counted the words in it. There were twenty-two. He had not liked the number. He had thought that a question with twenty-two words in it ought to be answered with a stone, and he had said so, and the Chamber had voted that he should answer it with a count instead.
So he came to the witness bench with his count-cord wound twice round his wrist, and he sat down, and he kept his eyes from the Chancery’s table. He looked at the walls.
The Great Hall had four of them, and every one had been built by somebody who had been told to hurry. The north wall was the oldest. It had been laid in the first year, when the Hold had had no mason but the Mason, and the joints were wide enough that a child could put a finger in them, and Harrow had filled them himself, one at a time, over three winters, until the mortar was grey and hard and would not be told otherwise. The south wall was newer and better…
