THE LIBRARY · THE VALE
The Hewngate Ransom-Roll
aka The Bought Gate, Bron's Ledger
The Broken Lances' fair-kept ledger of everyone held at Hewngate — priced, paid, or hung at the chain — written in a clerk's neat hand that makes the trade in people read like honest accounting.
Kept fair, as the company keeps all its books. — B.C. TOLL, standing: one in ten of goods, or the coin thereof, for safe passage the day. Refusal is not robbery; it is simply no passage. The road is ours to grant. HELD, for ransom: a man is worth what his people will pay and not a copper of what he thinks he's worth. Caravan-masters, pay quick and travel on. Guildsmen, your houses are slow; you will winter with us. The outrider woman, undercroft, third cell. Do NOT price her to the road. She is Vossk blood and the old grey company will come for her, and when they come they will come to buy or to bleed. Either pays. Keep her fed and unmarked; a damaged good argues the price down, and these are men who argue with steel. HUNG, at the chain: those whose people will not pay, and those who drew on the gate. Leave them up a week. The next caravan tolls quieter for the sight, and a quiet toll is a paid toll. We are not thieves. A thief takes and runs. We took, and we stayed, and we kept the ledger square. That is the whole difference, and it is the only honest thing on this road.
KIND
ledger
Connected
Type Fields
All Relationships (4)
references
- ←quest.the-chain-across-the-road (unresolved) — The ransom-roll in Bron's clerk's hand is the proof the bring-the-proof branch lifts.
- →Hewngate Keep — The ransom-roll is Hewngate's ledger of who is bought, held, or hung at the chain.
- →Edda Vossk — The roll's standing order: do not price the Vossk woman to the road — hold her for the company that will come.
authored
- →The Broken Lances — Kept in Bron's fair clerk's hand — the Broken Lances' own honest accounting of dishonesty.
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