For four years at the third pine desk from the coal scuttle in the Mere Survey House, Cale had been terrified of Master Halven’s left eyebrow.
Whenever a junior clerk transposed a farthing in the road-excise column or blotted a wet downstroke with coarse sand instead of pounce, Master Halven never shouted. He simply stood behind your stool smelling of lavender shaving soap and dry parchment, raised that single grey eyebrow half an inch, and made a small marginal tick with his silver pencil that meant your winter fuel allowance would be docked two shillings on Saturday. Cale had spent a thousand damp mornings keeping his elbows tucked against his ribs so he would never earn that tick.
Standing on the wet limestone curb of the market well with three hundred townsfolk staring up at him and Bailiff Garrow’s iron truncheon three feet from his shins, Cale discovered that his knees were knocking together so hard they rattled the brass buckle on his breeches—and yet he was not half as afraid of Master Halven’s eyebrow as he was of putting the paper back into his coat.
“Step down from that trough, boy,” Deputy Halven said. He did not even raise his voice; he spoke in the brisk, weary tone he used when an apprentice dropped an inkwell on the stair carpet. “You are currently listed on the March Ledger rolls as dismissed for desertion of post and unauthorized removal of Schedule Four stationery. Every word you speak adds a month…
