The miner’s question hung in the cool, lime-scented air of the Hall of Witness, plain and blunt as an iron crowbar laid across a ledger.
Up on the third tier, Brak did not sit back down. Two weavers and an elderly cooper beside him—people who had carried water buckets during Vane’s forest fire and slept under Noll’s vaulted ceilings when the smoke rolled through the valley—shifted on the pine bench, not quite pulling away from their neighbor, yet plainly wishing he had chosen a gentler hour to bring up the midnight tally.
Down at the witness table, Lord Auditor Orin Vane allowed himself the smallest, neatest smile that had crossed his face since dawn.
“Out of the mouths of the municipality,” Vane murmured, touching his fingertips together over the brass-bound lid of his portable register. “Do go on, Master Miner. The March Ledger has maintained for three months that a rogue dungeon core coerces every mortal within its boundary ring into subsidizing its delusions. I am delighted to hear a resident confirm the point under oath.”
Brak spat dryly onto the sawdust beside his boot and glared down at Vane’s bench. “Keep your delight in your pocket, Auditor. Your mortars burned my sister’s hayrick on Tuesday, and your lift-chain killed Maura’s boy in the pit. I didn’t stand up to carry water for your office.”
