The creak kept on until it turned into a thunk and stopped. Ryo set his hand on the bar without lifting it. He listened. Voices in the lane. Boots. A drag on stone. Anna came back from the rear gap, hair damp at the edges, jaw hard.
"They've set the stocks at the shrine," she said. "Facing us. They dragged them there. Brann's boys stand around like they're warming their hands on the wood."
"Ren," Ryo said. "Come."
Ren slid off the bench and pushed hair off his forehead with the heel of his hand. Toller stood without being asked, then looked at Ryo like he wanted permission to feel bigger than he was. Ryo nodded. The boy grinned once, quick and mean.
Ryo put the jar with the thumb print, the plate with the three nails, the folded cloth with Book or Blood, and his ledger book into the bag. He tied the knot twice. He slung the strap over his shoulder and felt the weight settle on the spot that could carry it.
"Anna," he said. "Bar down. No matter who calls your name."
She lifted her chin. "If they open it, I'll burn them with the stew and tell them I'm feeding hospitality into their shirt."
"Don't waste the stew," Ryo said. "Waste lye."
She almost smiled. She didn't. He lifted the bar and opened the door.
The lane had gathered faces. Men who had left their work standing with arms folded like they could make their elbows into armor. Women with flour on their cheeks. Boys on carts. The stocks had been set at the shrine steps, jaws open, pointing toward his door like a mouth hoping to bite. The priest stood on the threshold with arms tucked into his sleeves, not hiding cold, hiding his temper.
Brann stood in the center of the open space, ring hand raised, not tapping now because he didn't want to look like he needed to fidget. The thin man with the ring kept close to his shoulder, watching people, not Brann. The mallet man had a stick thin enough to swing quick and long enough to leave a bruise where a man wouldn't show it at dinner.
Soren stood off to the side with his box under his arm, watching Brann and watching the priest and trying to watch the crowd at the same time. He looked like he'd slept with one eye open and the box under his chin. Mara wasn't there yet. Ryo expected her within breaths.
Ryo walked to the space between the stocks and the shrine and stopped short of the step. Ren set himself off to Ryo's right, not in front, not behind. Toller took the left like a boy trying out the idea of being a man and not looking down to see if his feet would do it.
Brann turned his head. He smiled like a man who'd gotten the guests to sit where he wanted them. "Book," he said. "Bring it up here. We'll do this at the gods' table. They like watching men be reasonable."
"We don't put men in stocks facing a shrine door," the priest said, voice flat, rough with irritation held down. "You put stocks by the side, not in front of any threshold. You dragged them wrong. Move them."
Brann didn't look at him. "Bring the book," he said to Ryo, same tone, like the priest hadn't spoken at all.
Ryo didn't look at the stocks. He looked at Soren. "Table," he said.
Soren hesitated half a heartbeat and then moved as if he'd been waiting for someone to speak that word. He went to the side of the shrine and set his box on the low bench there. Corlan came around the corner at that moment hauling Mara's small table like it weighed nothing because he'd decided it didn't. Mara walked behind him with her ledger hugged against her, face quiet, eyes hot.
"Here," Mara said, and set the table down on the stones a pace off the stocks, not under the shrine's roof but close enough the priest wouldn't have to shout. She sat without asking who should sit. Soren set his box on the table. The priest took a step down so his feet were not on holy stone while he stood witness.
Brann didn't like how fast the shape of the space changed. Ryo saw it in the way his jaw flexed and smoothed. He tried to pivot into it.
"Fine," Brann said easily. "We'll do it at a table. Then we'll do it at the stocks. Bring the book."
Ryo walked to the table and set his own book down. He did not hand it to anyone. He opened it and turned it so the lines faced Soren and Mara. He set the jar beside it and the plate with the nails and the folded cloth in a neat row. He didn't make a speech; he arranged pieces like a man setting tools.
Mara tapped her ledger with a fingernail. "Steward Soren has a countersign from Lord Gareth," she said to the space more than to a person. "He wrote additional lines with me yesterday that say collections at this table, names and marks, coin to escrow until the adjacent lord's steward reads it and acknowledges. The countersign that came doesn't say where the coin is counted. He'll read it. Then we'll read the village lines. Then we'll read the trespass notice. If you try to put any man in the stocks while I am sitting at this table, I'll write your name in a line you will wish I hadn't."
Brann's eyes clicked to the jar and then to the plate. He didn't let his face move. The thin man with the ring swallowed once, throat working, gaze flicking to the writing on the folded cloth like he was trying to see through linen.
Soren pulled out the fresh countersign and read. His voice shook on the first word and got steadier by the third. He read the grant of authority, the levy, the word "immediately" twice, the line about collectors' discretion. He set the page down and set his hand on it to keep the wind from turning it into a flag.
He lifted Mara's addendum and read: at this table only, names and marks, escrow, return or release by witnessing stewards.
"Both stand," Soren said. "I carried one. I wrote the other with Dame Mara. We post both."
Brann smiled and spread his hands. "Good," he said. "Then you call my name and I show my hand and we take the day's copper. Then we set a man who likes nails under his boots in the stocks for scaring women with blood. You can do both before dusk if you stop talking and start doing."
Mara rolled the folded cloth flat with the stick she'd used earlier, ink inward. "First," she said, "if you drag the village stocks anywhere without the priest's say or my say, you answer for it. That is custom older than the road levy. Priest?"
The priest didn't give a sermon. "Stocks face the lane, not the gods," he said. "You moved them wrong. Move them back or I'll take a hammer to the pins so they don't close in my sight."
There was a sound from the crowd at that: a mix of approval and relief. They didn't want the stocks to look them in the teeth while they went to ask for blessings or put a hand on the door during a funeral. Brann heard it too. He measured it. He didn't move.
Ryo took two steps without asking permission. He put both hands on the side of the stocks and lifted with his legs, not his back. Wood scraped stone. Ren put his shoulder in on the other side without a word. Toller grabbed one corner and grunted because it was heavier than he had decided to tell himself. They turned the stocks ninety degrees to face the lane. The mallet man moved to block them. Ryo didn't stop. He looked at the man's elbows, not his stick. He shifted his grip and let the weight of the stocks swing the mallet man out of his chosen spot like a gate pushed by a cow that didn't care about fences. The stick man stumbled. Ren stepped into his space and used one hand to put the stick down by closing two fingers around the man's wrist and lifting his thumb off the shaft. The stick fell. Toller kicked it under the table like he'd meant to do it all day.
Brann's smile didn't break, but it got thinner. "Cute," he said.
"Right," the priest corrected, voice even.
Mara tapped the nails on the plate with the stick. "Names and marks," she said. "First entry under 'trespass,' as posted this morning. Nails set point-up in a trader's threshold. Three. Maker's stamp: two dots. Evidence on the table. Witnesses: Ryo. Joss, who swept the lane, saw mud on the heads. Anyone else?"
The goose house woman lifted her hand and didn't wait to be pointed at. "I sold two men nails this morning," she said. "They didn't like paying for a paper sack. They didn't want me to wrap them because they said they were in a hurry. Two dots on the heads. He bought them." She pointed with her chin at the thin man, not his ring, his face. "He had a ring that tapped my counter like he was impatient to hear wood sing."
The thin man's mouth opened. The words didn't come. He swallowed and found a smile that wasn't his and set it on his face.
"Boot scrapes under the sill," Anna called from the back of the crowd. She had come without being asked, because of course she had. She didn't move close. She kept a shoulder against a post. "One man. Toes out. Not a worker's step. Same as the man with the ring had when he came last night. He stood and liked my face and I wanted to throw his ring in the ditch."
Ren pointed at the pitch pot they'd brought to show Soren and Mara earlier and then set under the table. "Dung in a pot," he said. "Cut with water. Done while we were on a roof and men stood in a lane telling a door to open. Not proof for stocks. Proof for a broken nose if we were at the peat pit. Proof enough for a fine."
Mara wrote as they spoke. She asked no rhetorical questions. She didn't posture. She put down lines and added names. She drew small marks for the maker's stamp and wrote goose house woman near it so she would remember who had said it when the pages had gone soft with handling.
Brann moved his weight lazy, like a predator cat deciding which fence to jump. He let the thin man stand in the heat, then stepped half a step forward.
"You don't put a man in stocks for buying nails," he said, tone warm, reasonable. "You put him in stocks for being an idiot. You prove the idiot. You don't have hands on his hands."
Soren spoke then, voice steadier than at dawn. "Registered collectors are liable for their men," he said. "First trespass, the man stands. Second, the mark holder pays the fine as well. You wrote your name, Brann. You drew your mark."
Brann's head snapped to Soren. His smile dropped a degree. He didn't argue the rule; he hated that he hadn't thought of it first. He turned his eyes to the thin man. The look wasn't a question; it was a measurement.
The thin man tried his smile again and added words to it this time. "I bought nails because I was asked to fix a cart," he said. "I didn't like the sack because oil is expensive and why should I pay for it on nails when I needed it for the axle? I didn't go near the door. I was with Brann. I'm always with Brann." He said it like he believed that being always with Brann made him clean.
"Your thumb has a knife slip," Mara said, not raising her voice. "Show it."
The thin man laughed as if she'd made a joke at a table he wanted to sit at. He held up his hands. His right thumb had a small, fresh cut near the base. It could have been anything. Brann had one like it too. Ryo didn't stare. He let it sit in the air.
"Stocks," Mara said. "Half a day. Fine of five coppers to the village. Brann's name in the book as liable for his man. Pay the fine now. The man sits now. We don't move on until it's settled."
Brann's jaw made a movement like he was grinding gristle. He lifted a small purse and dropped five coppers onto the table slowly, one by one, so everyone could see he could count and afford it. He didn't look at the thin man, who had gone still, shoulders up, eyes a little wider like a trapped rat trying not to show where the hole in the wall is.
The priest stepped off the shrine step and walked to the stocks as if he were going to pick up a bowl. He lifted the top jaw. "Left or right," he asked Mara, not Brann.
"Left," Mara said. "He can scratch his nose with his free hand and think about not putting rings near doors."
The thin man tried to step back. Ren took his elbow with two fingers and turned him as gently as if he were guiding a dancer into a new position. The thin man made a noise and stopped making noise when Ren's thumb pressed the tendon by his elbow just so. Ryo watched. He stepped forward and set the man's wrist into the left hole, then brought the top jaw down and held it there with a hand that didn't shake. The priest slid the pin. It clicked. The crowd let out a noise that meant the sound fit their morning.
Brann didn't move for two heartbeats. Then he laughed in a way that was all performance and no air. He looked at Ryo, then at the jar, then at the plate.
"You've made yourself a story," he said. "You're very tidy. You've got witnesses and you've got nails on a plate and you've got a priest who doesn't like furniture near his door. You won't like how fast I can make a different story when the sun goes down."
"Then make it in front of Mara's table," Ryo said. "Or don't make it at all."
Brann turned his head toward Soren and held up the countersign. "We collect now," he said. "We're registered. There's a table. The day is half gone and I'm tired of being polite. If this is law, we do law. Start with him." He jabbed his ring at Ryo like he wanted to mark the book with it.
"I'm not licensed to pour," Ryo said. "I don't pay until I pour."
"You'll pay for standing," Brann said, like he'd invented the line.
"No," Soren said, surprising himself by how hard the word came out. He set his hand on the countersign. "That's not what any of this says. You'll take one copper from merchants of drink per day. You'll do it at this table. If you go door to door, I strike your name off the register and your men can go home for a season. That's the line I wrote. I'm not erasing it because your men can drag a piece of wood across stones."
Mara didn't smile. She set her quill down and set both hands flat on the page. "It's posted," she said. "It holds."
Brann breathed out the kind of breath a man uses to get rid of a punch he wants to throw. He looked at the thin man and then away because looking would make him own the weight of the pin. He turned his head and looked at the lane like it had answers.
"Tonight," he said, not loud and not soft. "Book or blood. I don't care if you write it. It'll be said."
"You already wrote it," Ryo said, tapping the folded cloth. "That page isn't yours anymore."
Brann started to turn. The mallet man took a step like a dog hearing a whistle. Ryo didn't move. He watched the right elbow and the left foot and the way the stick man's fingers bent around the air where a stick wasn't. He didn't need to catch anything this time. Ren was still one step to the side, and Toller had his foot on the kicked stick under the table and looked like he wanted to keep it there all afternoon.
The crowd moved in that way crowds do when they've decided they've seen enough and don't want to be where the next thing happens. The fish women drifted to the side with faces that said they'd come back if someone called and they would bring knives they used for eels. Corlan stayed where he was because carts have to sit sometimes and he was a cart.
Soren closed his box. He looked at Ryo. He looked at the jar and the plate and the book. "If he brings the stocks to your door," he said, quiet, so only Ryo could hear, "I can't stop him in the lane with a piece of paper. I can stop him at the table. I can stand here all night if I have to. I hate this job today."
"Then do it sitting down," Ryo said. "It's a long night."
Brann left. He didn't slam anything. He didn't need to. The ring hit stone once, tap, like a boy trying not to be obvious about wanting attention. The thin man shifted his shoulders and found he couldn't scratch the itch in his back. He set his jaw like he'd decided being angry at his own arm would make it shorter.
Mara wrote two more lines and sanded them. She didn't look pleased. She looked like someone who had kept a table level in a wind.
Ryo should have gone back to the house and scraped paste and checked strings and set the broom with a brick to keep the bristles true. He stayed until the priest told him to go, not with words but with a lift of his chin toward the lane.
"Go scrape your roof," the priest said. "I'll watch this idiot so he doesn't piss on my step."
Ryo nodded once. He put the jar and the plate and the book back in his bag. He walked back with Ren and Toller, neither of whom said anything for ten breaths. Then Toller huffed.
"He stuck his hand," Toller said. "He sat there like a goose with one wing through a fence. I'll remember that when he taps at me."
"Remember the nails," Ryo said. "Men forget nails."
He lifted the bar and let the room's familiar weight come back around his shoulders. He set the bag on the bar where he could reach it without looking.
Something settled in his head then the way a knot pulls tight and holds. It wasn't a voice. It wasn't a bell. It was like the sense of a floor that had added a board at the exact place where people kept tripping.
Sanction: bound. Table recognized.
He let the feeling slide out of reach without trying to name it. He pulled the paste off the last bad seam with a steady hand and wiped his blade clean on a rag that would go into the fire. He took a breath and let it out.
The first horn call came from the north bend—one long, one short, repeat. It cut through the lane and the room and the sound of water under the floorboards. Ryo didn't need anyone to translate. People turned their heads toward the marsh with the same motion foxes make when they hear the field change.
Anna's voice came from the back, steady. "That's not a levy horn," she said. "That's a reed-guard call."
Ren set the scraper down without looking at his hands. Toller's face went sharp. From the shrine direction came the sound of a bench pushed back fast and the scrape of a box picked up in a hurry.
Ryo stepped to the door and lifted the bar. Before he opened it, Soren's voice carried down the lane, thin with distance and urgency. "Marsh howlers at the north bend," he shouted. "Guardians to the road. All hands that can hold a pole—now." And over the call, another sound rose, wrong and deep—the throaty, wet howl of something that didn't belong in a village, rolling closer with the water.