The sixty bushels of lowland barley sat in the two heavy baggage carts at the edge of the circle, the coarse hemp sacks stamped with the royal grain-commission seal from three autumns past. To the basin miners standing behind Adra, the sight of clean grain was a physical ache. Three months on reduced rations of dried field peas and salted cabbage. Then, the scent of unground barley meal drifted across the frosty shale like a promise.
Adra Pike, however, didn’t look at the carts. She kept her eyes fixed on Captain Hest Vale’s face. Her wooden tally slate was held flat against her ribs like a breastplate. Her fingers, stained with red hematite and coal dust, tightened on the edge of the board.
“Let’s speak plain highland words, Captain,” Adra said, her voice cutting through the wind with sharp power. “When you say security, you mean that your guard post holds the northern ramp and charges half a crown on every cart that passes through the gate. When you say trade, you mean you take twenty-four baskets of dressed stone that took sixty men fourteen days to break out of the deep rock. Now you offer us two carts of barley that were requisitioned from lowland farmers who had no choice in the matter either.”
