The shadow of the iron portcullis teeth cut across the threshold flagstones like a row of black cleavers. Beyond that line, thirty Crown infantrymen stood in double ranks along the switchback road, their round shields rimmed in boiled leather, their iron spearheads catching the harsh noon sky. At their center, half a pace ahead of the front file, Lord Auditor Orin Vane stood with his hands folded behind his grey wool coat, waiting for the bells down in Mere to strike twelve.
Inside the vaulted gate passage, the air smelled of wet sand, cold limestone, and the sharp vinegar tang of Prit’s slate wash.
“He will not step across the sill,” Sella Rusk said, her voice low against the damp ashlar blocks. “On the county verge, he remains the Lord Auditor executing an administrative reclamation. The instant his boots touch your claimed floor, he becomes an entrant subject to the house rules. He wants us to walk out to him.”
“He wants the three of us,” Cale whispered from an upturned nail keg, clutching his dark coat. “He wants me for the stolen ledger folder, Renn for broken mine indenture, and Mistress Tessa because her testimony belongs to an unchartered holding.”
