The thaw came down from the high passes in the third week of March, turning the ruts of the south road into five leagues of black, bubbling porridge.
Cale sat at the center of the clerk’s long trestle in the Survey House yard, his coat collar turned up against the damp mountain wind, his ink-stained fingers wrapped around a steaming earthenware mug of chickory tea. Beside his left elbow, three stacks of legal foolscap were weighted down with river cobbles against the gusty breeze; beside his right elbow sat his four cedar-framed slates, freshly scrubbed with vinegar and marked in Prit’s grey audit chalk.
Across the muddy courtyard, five covered wains bearing the royal crest of the Old Royal Seat were being unhitched by Crown teamsters. The red wool coats of the King’s Bench bailiffs looked shockingly bright against the grey timber walls of Mere, their brass buttons polished to a high, cold gleam that seemed out of place among folk who had spent the winter patching roofs with green spruce slabs.
Behind the bailiffs walked the three judicial commissioners: Senior Magistrate Karr, thin-nosed and wrapped in fox fur; Justice Coram, an old circuit judge with gouty knees; and Lady Serit, whose royal envoy coffer was carried behind her by two unarmed guardsmen.
