The payout ledgers began on page one hundred and twelve. There, the rag thick parchment was bound with double-waxed cords of raw, unwhitened flax.
For thirty years—from the summer of 242 until the autumn of 272—the record was a model of town regularity. Every Michaelmas, four columns of names and numbers had been entered in the clear, rounded clerk hand of Master Scribe Cullen. Every entry was backed by three signed names. The Master of the Rolls, the Trustee of the Ward, and the recipient who had walked up the forty-eight marble steps to take his gold sovereign into his palm.
Tomas leaned over the open book, his dark lantern resting on two dry chestnut thin wedges, his vinegar-cloth pulled down to his chin so he could speak without inhaling the sulfur dust that hung near the ceiling. His right forearm ached with a dull, throbbing heat from the cellar damp. But his fingers were steady as he turned the heavy thick parchment leaves.
“Look at the early disbursements,” Tomas said, his scarred finger tracing the brown ink. “Anno 246: twelve gold sovereigns to Martha, widow of Peter the Cooper, whose shop was burned in the flax-docks. Anno 251: forty sovereigns to the Stonecutters’ Guild for wooden props the river wall at the Fish Shambles. Anno 259: one hundred and twenty sovereigns for thirty-six pensions to disabled foundry casters.”
