The High Exchequer stood on the northern terrace of the Citadel, a squat, castle-like building of dressed granite with barred slit windows and iron-studded oak doors six inches thick. For two hundred years, it had been the private counting-house of royal chancellors and ducal favorites. A place where country taxes were weighed, recorded in secret ciphers, and converted into private credit notes for foreign merchants.
Tomas Reed arrived at the granite roofed porch at the fourth hour of the afternoon. Then, the rain had settled into a steady, freezing mist. The heavy ash-wood pack frame was strapped securely to his shoulders, its oiled leather harness resting across his woolen work smock. Beside him walked the High Bailiff of the King’s Bench. He carried the four-foot silver mace of the court. He was flanked by Sile Rook and forty veteran draymen carrying heavy ash-wood packing bats.
Tomas reached up to adjust the iron buckle on his left calfskin wrist brace. The cold stone of the citadel always brought a dull, deep throbbing to the scarred tendon sheath along his forearm bone. But the heavy leather kept the wrist rigid, preserving his leftover sixty-five percent grip strength against the damp chill. For nine years, he had hauled sacks of grain through muddy gutters. Standing on the polished granite of the High Exchequer didn’t change the physical mechanics of carrying an honest load.
