The financial schedule was stitched into the final gathering of the thick parchment roll with three strands of waxed flax twine. It was sealed at each puncture with a bead of clear gum mastic. Hester Quill opened her portable calculating kit upon the dry corner of the stone base. She unfolded two hinged rows of polished ivory counting beads mounted on parallel brass rods. Beside the beads, she laid out three sharpened goose quills, an inkpot of dense iron-gall fluid. A small dry horn spoon filled with powdered foam-stone to scour away dampness from the margin sheets.
Tomas leaned over the parchment leaves, holding the dark-lantern steady in his sound right hand. The cellar chill was settling deeper into his joints. But his mind was focused entirely upon the columns of numbers inscribed in Master Scribe Cullen’s unrushed clerk hand. His left hand rested against his hip, fingers tucked inside his cart driver belt to keep the braced wrist warm against his woolen tunic. He had spent nine years calculating cart hauling weights on the canal quays of Bellwether. There, an error of three pounds could capsize a punt or break a mule’s hock. Arithmetic in a ledger was no different. Every digit had a physical weight in gold, sweat, or timber.
