Olla didn’t cry, and she didn’t throw her arms around Tomas’s neck. She was a scroll-keeper trained in the rigorous discipline of the Last Claim promise, where emotional indulgence during working hours was an offense against the dignity of the desk.
Instead, she stood up from her pine chair, smoothed the dark green wool of her skirt with both hands, walked around the counter, and stood before Tomas with her head bowed in formal, skilled respect.
“Master Tomas,” Olla said, her voice steady though her lower lip trembled slightly. “The office is in order. The morning hearth was lit at the sixth bell. The daybook is posted through yesterday evening. We have seventy-two active custody files under current administration.”
Tomas unbuckled his pack-frame. That let the sixty-eight pounds rest against the cedar wainscoting by the door. His shoulders rose with a long, slow breath of relief, but his eyes didn’t leave her face.
“Show me the daybook, Olla,” Tomas said.
A lesser master might have embraced the girl, asked about her health, or praised her loyalty. But Tomas knew that true respect between workers was shown through the work itself. If he treated her as a child, she would remain an apprentice forever. If he audited her books with the cold, unbending scrutiny of a master judge, she would stand before the town judges as an equal.
