Reeve Dena Holt did not rise from the parish bench right away.
Listening through the Bastion’s limestone ribs and the small brass pass in Tessa’s apron pocket, Noll Vey could hear the old woman’s heavy horn-handled walking stick tapping twice—tock, tock—against the wet flagstones of the market square. It was the exact sound a seasoned magistrate makes when she has already decided the verdict and is merely counting the cost of the carpentry after the gavel falls.
“Put the shackles back in your box, Master Bardon,” Reeve Holt said.
“Madam Reeve,” Senior Deputy Bardon said, his voice tight and shrill through the gatehouse speaking horn, “if you obstruct a March Ledger assessment order, I am instructed to log this parish as in open administrative default before noon!”
“You may log that the Reeve of Mere knows how to read a charter,” Holt answered, rising from the bench with her heavy grey wool cloak gathered around her elbows. “Under the Charter of the Seven Dukes, no freeman or householder of a border parish may be removed to a closed royal vault without a signed warrant from two traveling assize judges or a public inquest held in open daylight. Your Exposure Roll has one signature on it—Lord Auditor Vane’s—and the ink on your own mine receipts has been changing color in people’s baskets since Tuesday.”
