A crow flapped up from the roadside ditch, its black wings cutting through the dry midday heat, its harsh croak echoing off the limestone crags. Down on the switchback track, where fifty people from Mere stood gathered along the stone field walls, nobody spoke. The distance was too great to catch every word, but the sight of a rumpled junior clerk standing nose-to-chin with the Lord Auditor of the Northern March was a sight no farmer in the valley had ever expected to witness.
Lord Auditor Orin Vane stared down at the unfolded sheet of Crown vellum in Cale’s ink-stained hands.
For five heartbeats, Vane’s face remained as smooth as polished horn. Then his left eyelid twitched, a tiny, involuntary tremor that was gone almost before it began.
“A minor clerical variance,” Vane said, his voice flat, low, and perfectly controlled. “The notice of intent to revoke was engrossed on the eighth day of the month by the High Registry at Greyford. Under Section Nine of the General Clauses Act, computation of statutory notice periods commences upon the date of official engrossment, regardless of postal transit delays.”
“Section Nine was repealed four years ago, my Lord Auditor,” Cale answered.
The boy did not shout. He stood with his shoulders slightly hunched, his grey coat powdered with stone dust, his fingernails rimmed with black gall ink. But his voice had the relentless, unyielding precision of an iron clock weight descending through an empty tower.
