Most booksellers will struggle with some aspects of the account books, written to include aged abbreviations of the free people's tongue. But they will show matters of domestic interest: how much grain was seeded and produced and harvested each season, how many animals were brought in, how many survived whichever season, how much coin was made from various sales, and how much expended on domestic costs.

Beitang Moran's lovely new shop girl acquaintance will be able to share that woodsmen go often into the forest, but, if you ask her, there's been an increase in complaints about the quality of their wares. They keep bringing back weak, shallow branches, suggesting they're picking out remains from the outskirts of the forest, more than deepening their search into the woods and cutting down local trees.

The farmhouse, she hasn't heard of herself, only that it used to belong to the chieftain Anurr — and what kind of message would it send, to make home in the house of Unhalad's former enemy, while Unhalad rules?