The silence across the Gilded Barricade lasted three heartbeats before Vane Vale began his audit.
The Merchant didn’t shout. He didn’t wave his arms. He simply pulled his gold-trimmed brass pocket counting frame from his waistcoat, held it before his chest at chest-height. Then he let the brass beads click with a sharp, metal rhythm that seemed to echo off the marble retaining walls like tiny gunshots.
“Docket Number Eighty-Nine, Sub-Clause Four,” Vane read aloud. His voice dropped into the smooth, dramatic rhythm of a royal prosecutor before the House of Lords.
He held up a roll of thick calfskin thick parchment, displaying the purple wax seal of the High court so that every court guard on the low roof wall could see the royal eagle.
“On the sixteenth hour of the current siege,” Vane continued, his gray eyes fixing upon the pale face of Magistrate Kaelen, “the Special Defense Committee allocated twelve transport permits to the Third-Grade Magistracy of the Middle Spires. Each permit authorized one horse, one light carriage, and twenty rations of hard bread for the judge’s personal staff.”
Vane clicked four beads upward with his gloved thumb.
“However,” Vane drawled, pointing his ivory-headed cane at the heavy freight wagons wedged behind Kaelen’s barricade, “a check of the wheel ruts on this avenue reveals that your four private carriages are currently carrying an aggregate dead weight of eighteen thousand royal pounds. That’s not twenty rations of hard bread, Magistrate Kaelen. That’s four hundred bushels of refined winter…
