Lord Auditor Orin Vane did not lose his temper. A man who has spent twenty-five years verifying Crown tax assessments in six border provinces does not shout when an adversary strikes a rhetorical blow; he sets his pen down in its brass rest, squares his sheepskin folios with the edge of the walnut desk, and looks at the room with the weary, patient condescension of an adult explaining the calendar to a child.
“The subject’s speech is eloquent,” Vane said, turning his body toward the tiered benches where the miners and soldiers sat in their quiet rows. “It is the ancient argument of every border rebel who has ever refused to pay the road maintenance cess or objected to the king’s standard bushel. It appeals to the natural sentiment of men who wish to be left alone with their private gardens and their private quarrels.”
He rose from his chair and walked slowly around the Crown desk, stopping beside the heavy, wheeled oak chassis of the portable register.
The machine stood three feet high, bound in polished yellow brass and iron corner straps, its four iron wheels chocked with wooden blocks on the flagstones. Inside its slotted copper housing, Collar Anchor Two—the Master Oath-Silver Register Core—hummed with a faint, steady vibration that smelled faintly of dry paper, lamp grease, and ozone.
