The man sitting on the overturned choir stall didn’t reach for a weapon.
He was seventy years old, his frame gaunt beneath a faded black linen cassock whose cuffs were frayed to the weft. His thinning white hair was plastered to his skull with cold sweat. His hands trembled as he cradled an open High court ledger bound in boiled pigskin across his knees. Around both of his wrists were strapped three-inch wide bands of oiled calfskin holding watchmaker gear catch keys, brass tweezers, and a small silver tuning fork.
He looked up as the heavy oak church door closed behind Ren, Mira, and Chrono-Scribe Ren.
His watery blue eyes took in Ren’s frayed lambskin apron, the violet ink etched permanently into his callused fingernails. The four-inch mammoth ivory awl gripped in his right hand.
“A Conservator,” the old man wheezed, his voice dry as dead thick parchment scraped by a blunt knife. “Another vulture from the High court. Have you come to audit our sunshine, boy? Have you come to tell me the morning market is running without a royal tax stamp?”
“Deacon Varis,” Ren said, his gravelly voice low and steady in the dim nave. “Your charter expired fifty years ago.”
