The clerk’s office behind the High Bench was quiet. He smelled of cold tea, drying dark oak-ink, and wet lime plaster that had begun to crumble along the wainscoting.
Outside, the cheering of the five thousand citizens packed into the public square had settled into a steady, triumphant roar that shook through the leaded glass windows. In the arched hall beyond the heavy oak door, Captain Thorne had posted eight veteran town court guards, their heavy iron batons resting against their hips, their shoulders braced against the timber frame to keep the surging crowd from overwhelming the office offices. Meanwhile, the final rolls were processed.
Ren Vale sat at the Chief Clerk’s dark wood drafting table, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His forearms showing the was dark, swollen violet lines of the ink-rot pulsing beneath his skin.
The office aftermath of a dismantled trial was an ocean of paperwork. Scribe Ren was in his element.
The master forger stood over the clerk’s shoulder, his ghostly form streaming the scent of dry thick parchment and gum arabic. His silver-nipped pool quill tapped the dark wood desk whenever the young town clerk paused. “Check the margin posture, boy! A decree of total nullification must have an even three-quarter-inch border on all four sides. If your ascenders drift into the binding margin, a clever judge in the High Spire could argue that the seal was affixed after the text was carried out, creating a presumption of irregular filing under the Lexicon of…
