Prit did not like the smell of the lower core vault when the ledger was in audit status.
It smelled of cold lime, crushed feldspar, and the dry, metallic copper stench that always accompanied an unsettled debt. Under the rule of his fourth master, the lady Luma, the vault had smelled of dried chamomile and warm sheep’s milk, because Luma had used her core-force to shelter eight children in a slow-time fold. Under Noll Vey, the room usually smelled of damp chicory, stale tobacco, and wood-ash from the hearth flue.
Now, with the white ledger split across its face and the milk-white glare reflecting off the damp granite walls, it smelled like an executioner’s cellar ten minutes before the cart arrived.
Prit held the stub of gray audit chalk between his third and fourth metacarpal bones. The gray chalk was harder than the soft white filing lime; it was quarried from the slate beds of the High Marches and contained enough iron-grit to leave an indelible, greasy mark that could not be rubbed away with a damp cloth.
“Look at the first line, Mistress Dene,” Prit said, his small bone arm extending toward the northern corner of the split slab.
