The stone curb of the iron market well was slick with green moss and freezing drizzle, and Cale’s left boot heel nearly skidded off the chisel-bevel as he climbed up.
He caught his balance by grabbing the cold iron upright of the well-sweep. His hands were ink-stained around the cuticles—they had been ink-stained since he was fourteen years old, copying widow-pensions and ditch-assessments by tallow light after his mother lost her eyesight—and in the raw valley wind his knuckles looked purple and absurdly small against the forged iron bar.
Four feet below him on the parish bench steps, Senior Deputy Bardon stared up with his mouth slightly open, the oath-silver shackles dangling from his gloved fist.
“Get down from the well-head, Cale,” Bardon snapped, recovering his official voice. “You are suspended from the Third Desk without stipend. Step forward to the bailiffs and sign your submission.”
“I heard my name called, Master Bardon,” Cale said. His voice squeaked on the word heard, the way it always did when he was terrified, so he stopped, swallowed once, and pitched his tone the way he used to read long boundary deeds aloud in a drafty registry room—slow, flat, and distinct enough for the deaf tanners at the back of the square to catch every consonant. “And since the Exposure Roll says I removed departmental records, I brought a true copy of them in my pocket so the parish can hear what Lord Auditor Vane wants locked in the cellar.”
