The four guild masters leaned over the double trestle table as Elin Hale weighted the corners of the unrolled rag vellum with four pewter ale mugs.
Under the yellow whale-oil lamp, Lady Signe Lorr’s square High Assize script stood out against the cream parchment with the austere authority of an imperial treaty, yet every clause had been cut to fit the working measurements of South Lane.
“Read the articles for yourself, Mistress Gault, Master Finch,” Elin said, resting her bone forceps beside the brass coin-scale on the ledger desk. “Article One divides the entire freehold of the River Lantern Inn—the Four-Cornerstone Boundary, the taproom, the upper chambers, the stable court, and the subterranean basalt vaults—into fifty equal, indivisible municipal shares priced at one coined silver crown apiece. Article Two establishes that the fifty silver crowns raised by this subscription shall be weighed before Notary Corve Penner tomorrow morning to redeem and extinguish Instrument Forty-Four in perpetuity.”
Master Weaver Joran Finch ran a dye-stained forefinger along the third and fourth paragraphs, his stooped shoulders hunching closer to the parchment as he calculated the commercial math.
“A one-crown share in a tavern during a siege march,” Finch muttered, half to himself and half to Bessa Karr beside him. “In peacetime, a fiftieth part of the River Lantern would be worth three crowns on the rental roll alone. If Marshal Ors brings siege engines up to the river bank by Thursday, however, timber roofs in South Lane will not fetch two copper farthings…
