The hooves of the four horses were shod with heavy iron caulkins that tore neat, three-sided plugs of turf from the roadside verge. The riders wore black broadcloth greatcoats with silver frogging across the chest. Their cocked hats were bound with narrow strips of bleached beaver fur.
Advocate Morrel didn’t dismount right away. He sat his bay gelding ten paces from Tomas Reed’s folding deal table. That let the steam from the animal’s wet nostrils drift across the open pages of the muster ledger. Behind him, two liveried court guards sat their saddles with heavy ash cudgels rested against their thigh boots, their expressions hardened by years of evicting tenant cottagers who fell behind on their ground rents. Between the court guards rode a junior clerk in a threadbare wool mantle. They grabbed an embossed red morocco dispatch case against his stomach as if it were a shield.
Tomas Reed didn’t look up right away. He dipped his iron-shanked brass ruler into the chalk pot, wiped the surplus powder along the rim, and laid the metal edge true against the thick parchment. With a fine steel point, he scored the margin for the third company roll. The work needed an even, downward pressure that made his left wrist brace hum with tension. He had spent three hours that morning adjusting the buckle straps, oiling the split leather where it chafed against his outward scar, and testing the tension against an eight-pound bag of river ballast. A master tax clerk didn’t…
