The cold draft coming through the floor joists carried the smell of wet soot from the chimney flues above. On the upturned flour barrel, the vellum leaves of the private ledger lay open under the yellow glow of the four horn lanterns, their edges curling slightly in the cellar damp. Around them, the rows of thirty-gallon ale tuns stood in the shadows like a silent council of fat, wooden burghers, their iron hoops weeping thin streaks of rust into the limestone sawdust.
Lady Signe Lorr drew off her left kidskin glove, tucking it into the silver-embroidered cuff of her traveling cloak. Her hands were slender, pale, the skin around the thumb calloused from thirty years of holding goose-quill pens and cutting wax wafers for court summonses.
“We do not enter into this compact as rebels or conspirators, Master Hale,” Signe said, her voice dropping into the cold, rhythmic cadence she used when opening the High Assize at Michaelmas. “We enter as sworn conservators of the Common Law. If Sir Cael Ardent’s Hearth Nail operates outside the statutes of the realm, then our duty to the Crown requires us to establish a lawful record of its operations. The Crown cannot claim an authority that dissolves the very subjects it is chartered to protect.”
