Following the reading of the decree, Magistrate Valen summoned Tomas Reed to the high altar.
In the presence of the full country court, Elder Mallow, Hester Quill, and the silent ranks of the village elders, Valen opened a velvet-lined iron box bearing the double-crowned crest of the Royal High court of Writs.
From the box, Valen drew a heavy medallion of solid naval bronze, four inches across and half an inch thick. In its center, surrounded by twenty-eight engraved gold stars, sat the symbol of the Sovereign Tax clerk: an iron balance hanging from an unbending land-mapper’s level. He was flanked by an open book and an iron spike.
“Tomas Reed,” Magistrate Valen said, his voice quiet with deep, personal respect. “Ten seasons ago, you entered the public service as an unranked porter on the Low-Gate turnpike, carrying four-silver coin loads with an unhealed tendon and a worn ash staff. You took the claims that every guild, every noble knight, and every town court abandoned as impossible, dangerous, or unworthy of their attention.”
Valen lifted the heavy bronze medallion by its chain of hammered brass links.
“By your labor in the flooded sump of Val-Mora, you haven’t only stopped six hundred globes of lethal fire. You have rescued one hundred and forty honorable men from a traitor’s grave, and proven that the common blood of this realm has sovereign rights that no chartered hero can put out.”
