The Ransom-Roll

A page of the ransom-roll kept in the counting-room: every traveller held at the chain, the price set on each, and which of them will be missed — the Broken Lances' business, in a fair clerk's hand.

HELD AT THE CHAIN — NAMES, PRICES, AND WHO WILL COME.

Merrow, a corn-factor of Highbridge — 8 crowns — his guild will pay; pay soon, he eats well. Two drovers, the brothers Sesk — 2 crowns the pair — no one will come; put to the wall-work. A Vandahl under-steward — 20 crowns — the House was written to at the first snow. No answer yet. NOTE, clerk's hand: write again; it is the House's own man. A Temple carter — released, on the captain's word: "we do not sell the god's people; it is bad for the road."

Marginal hand, the clerk's, small and careful: "I keep it fair because a fair roll is the only mercy left to keep. A true price and a true count is not the same as a right. I write down every name so that some day a name can be answered for."