Sella finished the last two lines herself, in the early dark, with her good hand, and Tallow held the lamp.
He had been asked to. She had sent a Lowgate boy to the gatehouse at the afternoon bell with a note in her own dry hand that said only the bone-room, the lamp, after the candles, and bring your slate. He had brought the slate. He had brought the pen behind his ear and a fresh bottle of the Clerk’s ink from the gatehouse press, and he had walked down the Undercroft stair with the ink in one hand and the lamp in the other, counting the steps out of habit and skipping the fourth, which was still roped and still cracked. He had found her in the chair by the slope with the blanket up to her chin and the ledger open on her knees at its last page. She had not looked up when he came in. She had only lifted one hand off the blanket, very slowly, and let it fall back.
“Read them to me,” she had said. “Both lines. Out loud, the way you read the minutes. I want to hear the figures in your voice before I write them.”
