Sabine Oakenshaw Keeps the Old Rule

Corvin Ashby had expected the oldest House in the Lit Lands to look older. Instead the Old House of Braiins at Brackenmoot was a long stone barn with new glass in old frames, and its head, Sabine Oakenshaw, was mending a lamp bracket with pliers when he came in out of the rain.

“You’ve the oldest name on the Chain,” he said, and meant it kindly. “People listen to you. The cloaked bands cross on whoever’s link comes next. If the Old House let it be known it wouldn’t carry them, others would follow. My masters in Copperhythe would remember the favour. Coal at cost. A warm wing for your crew in winter.”

The bell went up the valley while he spoke. Braiins had caught it, the first link the House had taken in days, and the runner came in shaking water off his hat to say a great grey band had gone aboard with the rest, all at a drop and a tenth a span. Twice the morning’s price, and still next to nothing.

Sabine set the pliers down. “We caught the second Halvenfall’s link,” she said. “Well, the first. I get them muddled. Back then a lamp on a kitchen table could catch light, and nobody asked whose kitchen. We carry what pays and what’s sound. A cloak’s sound.”

“Even at a drop a span?”

“Especially then. It’s the only rule we’ve kept since the beginning.” She picked the pliers up again, and Ashby understood he had been dismissed by someone who had outlasted better men than him.