The gall-ink was freezing in Cale’s brass well.
Every twenty lines, the young clerk had to hold the small square inkhorn cupped in both palms, blowing his warm breath over the dark liquid until the slush of iron crystals dissolved back into fluid. His fingers were stiff at the joints, his wool stockings were damp from the sheep-pen culvert, and his horn-rimmed spectacles kept slipping down his sweat-greased nose as he knelt upon the cold white marble flags of the Hall of Witness.
Beside him, Sergeant Berr held the tallow lantern steady at knee height, shielding the small, smoky flame from the acoustic draughts that circled the tiered benches. The dead sergeant’s iron-clad ribs creaked faintly whenever he shifted his balance, but his mail-clad forearm did not waver by a hairsbreadth. Thirty years in the damp earth of the hill fort had not shaken the old soldier’s discipline; he held the lantern as though standing inspection for an imperial marshal.
Across the reading-desk, Prit had his grey audit chalk pressed against the lower corner of his slate, copying out legal annotations in tiny, sharp shorthand. The little bone-imp was shivering in his moth-eaten coat, his tail tucked tight around his ankles, but his amber eyes burned with the fierce delight of an archivist who has finally found the master index.
