Tobin asked Korrin to read the next six names.
He asked him plainly, as a carrier asks a carter for a hand with the last load of the day. He came round the end of the bench with the Roll’s cover under one arm and the Register’s pen in his other hand, and he stopped in front of the Hard Hand, who was sitting with his arms folded and his face set against the lime-washed stone of the Undercroft wall. He did not glance at Korrin’s refusal. He did not glance at the page where Tallow had written it in the Ink. He only held out the pen, and said, in his clear child’s voice, “You can read them. You are not Bonded. You are still a Hand.”
Korrin did not take the pen. He looked at the boy for some time, and then at the Roll, lying open on the bench under the lamps with its iron corners and its long numbered lines. He had refused the Charter. He had said so, in front of the whole Chamber, in the flat voice he used for tallies he did not believe. He had said that the Chancery copied names, and that he would not hand it a list. He had meant every word.
