“Let me make sure I understand the accounting,” Noll Vey said, his voice rattling through the warm lime joints around the chimney breast while the gale threw another fistful of sleet against the eastern shutter. “If I hang a painted velvet curtain across the arch, tell the town that a three-headed mountain drake sleeps in the pantry, and charge every farmer two pence to peek at Hobb’s turnip barrel in the dark, the ledger pays me in hard Claim Credit.”
Down on the window ledge, Prit held his slate steady against his ribs and dipped his chin a fraction of an inch. “Provided the farmer believes the turnip barrel has teeth, Master. Yes.”
“And if I open both doors in a blizzard, heat the flagstones so the mules do not split their hooves on black ice, keep the roof from falling on their heads, and let half the parish tramp mud across my clean floor without charging a single brass farthing—” Noll paused for theatrical weight, letting the mortar hum along the ceiling beam “—I receive precisely zero points.”
“Zero Claim Credit,” Prit corrected, his white chalk poised over the slate. “Truthful transit generates no debt, no illusion, and no witness tax. However, the Rule of Place requires that a Hearth become a Threshold through two full days of unbarred, uncharged passage between separated roads.”
