The ducal keep had not slept.
Quinlan and Ayame felt it from the outer gate: courier horses streaming through the yard, boots taking the stairs in relays, and the great hall, when they entered it, converted wholesale into a war camp of paper.
Trestle tables ran in ranks down its length, stacked with documents in sorted tiers, and clerks moved between them at a pace one report shy of running.
At the center of it all, installed behind a desk the size of a modest fortification, sat Elder Chizuru of the Fujimori, governing.
Her brush did not stop while she spoke. "Denied. The garrison's pay is not a negotiation, and neither is its schedule; if the river treasurer finds it burdensome, he may find a new profession. Approved. Grain moves at first thaw, under escort, and the toll stations reopen with it. Denied. Denied. Approved, contingent on inspection. Where is the western granary count I demanded at dawn?"
