The front entrance of the Bellwether Adventurers’ Guild was built to remind commoners that they were small and temporary.
Six granite arches, carved with reliefs of the Six Champions holding back a roaring river of stone, supported a vaulted ceiling painted with gold leaf and azure lapis. Between the arches hung great brass chandeliers holding hundreds of beeswax tapers that filled the air with the rich, sweet scent of honey and costly perfumed oil. On the marble floor, young knights with silk surcoats and silver spurs walked with the easy, arrogant stride of men who had never carried their own baggage.
Tomas Reed entered through the copper-clad public door, wearing his clean wool coat and his best pair of resoled oxhide boots. Under his left arm, wrapped securely in three layers of oiled canvas and bound with tarred twine, was the cedar box.
A clerk at the lower railing, dressed in dark blue broadcloth with an enameled guild pin at his collar, blocked his path with an ebony tip-staff. Behind the railing, sitting on a high stool by the hearing book, sat young Rennet, whispering into the ear of a notary’s apprentice. Rennet looked up, saw Tomas, and his mouth tightened into a pale, sour smirk.
“The labor registry is in the Gut, porter,” the clerk with the tip-staff said without looking at Tomas’s face. “The public hall is reserved for licensed adventurers, registered merchants, and bonded messengers.”
Tomas reached into his breast pocket and produced a stiff rectangle of heavy thick parchment. It was his Last Claim registration slip. It was stamped with his own blood and the indelible amber seal of the Court of Accounts.
“I’m not here for the labor registry,” Tomas said, speaking with the clear, even rhythm he used when presenting a customs manifest to a river court guard. “I’m here to file a lawful Notice of Custodial Transfer on bonded article LC-039-VOSS. I need the seal of the Senior Registrar.”
The clerk looked at the thick parchment slip. His eyes widened slightly as he saw the legal formula: Statutory Custody under Last Claim. Personal Liability Accepted. He looked from the thick parchment to Tomas’s scarred hands, then sneered.
“Wait by the third pillar,” the clerk said, turning on his heel. “Master Marr is reviewing the quarterly tax abstracts with the high tax clerk.”
Tomas stood by the fluted marble pillar for forty minutes. He didn’t lean against the stone. A man had spent six years balancing eighty-pound sacks. Then, his stance was straight, his feet set sixteen inches apart. His weight was balanced equally across his heels. The young adventurers glanced at him with mild disgust, steering their hounds away from his patched wool coat. But Tomas kept his eyes fixed on the arched doorway of the registrar’s office. He noticed the tiny details of the high hall. The gold-trimmed moldings were cracked along the north top stone ledge where the river damp seeped through the stonework, and behind the velvet drapes, a clerk was dusting off an abridged copy of the town charter with a turkey feather.
At ten o’clock, the inner door opened. Caldus Marr stood on the threshold, waving away a junior scribe with a bundle of rolled tax maps. He spotted Tomas, his bloodhound jowls tightening, and jerked his head once toward the office.
“Inside, Reed. Quickly. Before the court guards arrive from the High Court.”
Tomas walked into the office. The room was lined with floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases filled with calfskin registers, legal rolls, and iron-bound deed boxes. A heavy desk of polished dark wood sat before a tall window overlooking the front plaza, covered in brass inkstands, sand-shakers, and red wax blocks.
Marr shut the heavy door, turned the brass key in the lock, and walked behind his desk. He didn’t sit down. He leaned his knuckles on the leather blotter. He stared at the canvas bundle under Tomas’s arm.
“Rennet told me what happened in the yard,” Marr said, his voice quiet, low, and stripped of the dramatic bluster he had used in the alley yesterday. “You took the claim. Your thumbprint is on the plate.”
“My name is Bearer Thirteen,” Tomas said. “I’m filing the formal transfer notice.”
Marr reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a small velvet pouch, and dropped it onto the desk. The pouch struck the dark wood with a heavy, metal clink. He loosened the silk drawstring and tipped five large silver crowns onto the green leather blotter.
The coins were brand new, minted in the capital, with milled edges and the high-relief profile of the King. They shone in the morning light like clean mirrors.
“Five silver crowns,” Marr said, watching Tomas’s eyes. “In hand. No deductions, no registry charges, no notary fee. That’s two months of full wages on the high heavy cart lines, Tomas. More than your father earns in a year of whittling pegs.”
Tomas looked at the five bright coins. They lay on the blotter, cool and inviting, representing fifty sacks of flour, new shoes for his mother, and six months of dry firewood.
“What am I selling for five crowns, Registrar?” Tomas asked.
“You surrender the box to the registrar’s private custody under an Article Nine Quitclaim,” Marr said smoothly. “You sign a statement that the article was found in an unrecoverable state of dry rot and dismantled for scrap metal. The plate will be retired, the docket closed as an office write-off. Your name erased from the thirteenth notch.”
Tomas didn’t touch the money. He kept his hands clasped behind his back.
“Yesterday,” Tomas said, “you told me the box was worthless rubbish. You told Rennet to throw it into the fire with the rotted horse bandages. Why is an unrecoverable piece of scrap wood worth five silver crowns today?”
Marr’s expression didn’t change, but his small, dark eyes grew cold as ditch water. “You’re an ignorant boy, Reed. You think because you read three lines in a logistics manual that you understand how a city functions. You think this is about a child’s birthday toy.”
“The plate says it’s a birthday toy,” Tomas said.
“The plate was engraved forty years ago by a dead man!” Marr hissed, leaning forward until his knuckles whitened against the dark wood. “Oren Voss wasn’t just a shield-bearer. He was the commissary marshal for the Lantern Company! He held the duplicate supply dockets for the entire Northern Spillway Project! Every barrel of black powder, every iron water gate chain, every grain share-out that went to the northern weirs passed through his hands!”
Tomas felt the cold weight of the box against his ribs. “And what’s inside this box?”
“I don’t know!” Marr snapped. “And you don’t know! But the High Council doesn’t want private adventurers digging up forty-year-old company dockets while the Kingdom’s clerks are in town. The flood was settled thirty-nine years ago. Compensation was paid, monuments were erected, and the city moved on. Digging up the grave ward won’t bring back the drowned parishes. It will only make trouble for people who have work to do.”
He pushed the five silver coins across the blotter toward Tomas’s fingers. “Take the silver, Tomas. Walk out of here, go buy your mother a new washboard, and leave the old dead things to the people who hold the keys.”
Tomas looked at the five coins, then at the registrar.
“If the box contains company dockets,” Tomas said, “then the delivery clause is still binding. Mirelle Voss is the lawful heir to her father’s papers. Chapter Two, Section Eight: A private delivery can’t be converted into an office seizure without a warrant from the High Court of Accounts. Do you have a warrant, Master Marr?”
Marr’s face went white. The loose skin beneath his chin trembled with suppressed rage.
Slowly, deliberately, he pulled the velvet pouch toward himself, scooped the five silver crowns back inside, and tied the silk drawstring with a sharp jerk of his fingers.
“You have made a very bad choice, porter,” Marr whispered.
He pulled a pre-printed form of heavy grey paper from a pigeonhole, dipped an iron pen into black ink. Then he wrote three lines with vicious, stabbing strokes. He stamped the bottom with the Guild’s heavy brass audit seal, shook sand across the wet ink. Then he shoved the paper across the desk.
“An official Guild Audit Notice,” Marr said, his voice trembling with malice. “Under Section Twenty-One of the Courier Code: Any uncalled bearer who undertakes an unbonded dangerous delivery outside town lines must present all recovered artifacts, receipts, and associated documents to the Senior Registrar’s office within forty-eight hours of lawful closure for lawful audit. If you fail to appear within forty-eight hours, an order of arrest for grand conversion of guild property will be issued to the City Watch.”
Tomas picked up the grey paper. He read the clauses carefully, verifying that the wording didn’t strip him of interim custody.
“I’ll be here within forty-eight hours of closure,” Tomas said.
He took his own chalk stick from his pocket, signed his name on the duplicate slip on the desk—Tomas Reed, Porter, Interim Custody—and left the registrar’s office without taking another breath of the perfumed air.