The small office off the main drying shed smelled of dried oak gall, linseed oil, and seasoned cedar. Through the high south-facing window, sunlight cut across the heavy oak writing table, lighting up the slow dance of dust motes above a stack of clean linen parchment.
Maud Venn didn’t sit down right away. She stood by the table, smoothed Captain Hest Vale’s sealed parchment with the flat of a wooden potter’s rib, and laid it out beside the heavy brass inkstand. Her movements were slow, careful, and devoid of theatrics.
“Get the strongbox key, Kezra,” Maud said.
Kezra reached into the small hide pocket sewn inside her coat lining, pulled out the flat iron key. Then she knelt beside the iron-banded oak chest bolted to the floor timbers beneath the window. When the heavy tumbler turned with a solid, oiled thunk, she lifted the lid. Inside lay the parchment rolls of Kilnstep’s communal charter, the lease agreements for the clay pits, and the yellowed tax receipts dating back thirty years to her grandfather’s time.
Maud took Hest Vale’s writ, folded it once along its original crease, and laid it directly atop the village charter.
“Young Tam wanted to make a bonfire on the cobbles,” Maud remarked, her fingers resting on the heavy lid as Kezra locked it. “Boys always think burning paper makes a threat go away. But an enemy’s threat is an ugly thing when it’s shouted in your street. A beautiful thing when it’s locked in an iron…
