A lesser showman—or a younger one, with knees that still bent in damp weather and a purse that had never met a county bailiff—might have lowered his voice.
That was how the trap always worked in small magistrates’ parlors. The gentleman in the clean wool coat leaned across the table and offered you two polite Latin words in a low, confidential murmur, inviting you to whisper back as though the two of you were fellow men of the world sorting out a minor clerical misunderstanding above the heads of the common folk. Once you whispered, the room belonged to him. Once you agreed that the conversation was too delicate for the carters on the benches, he could write whatever he liked in the margin and call you a consenting party.
Noll Vey had no lungs to whisper with anyway, and he had no intention of letting Lord Auditor Orin Vane turn his supper hall into a private parlor.
Instead, Noll pitched his voice through the mortar seam five feet up the western wall so that it carried clear and dry from the hearth stone to the outer threshold arch, reaching every sled driver, sawyer, and cabbage seller with a spoon in their hand.
