Mike Shevdon: Sixty-One Nails

She wondered idly whether the investiture also had some secret meaning, whether the City had its own reasons for conducting rituals lasting hundreds of years. She thought it much more likely that the office of sheriff had more to do with networking and connections in the world of high finance. She smiled as she realised people probably looked at her and thought she had a boring staid existence.

If only they knew.

The Comptroller completed his speech and recommended the two candidates for approval by the crown, which the Remembrancer granted. He looked gravely at them for a moment and then told them in a serious tone, that although there was an annual salary of three hundred pounds for each of them, due at the quarter-sessions of Epiphany, Easter, Midsummer and Michaelmas, they would receive not a single penny of it.

There was a ripple of laughter though the assembled audience of family members and colleagues, all turned out in their finery. They all knew these city gentlemen regarded three hundred pounds as small change and that they would probably spend more than that on champagne after the ceremony.

Rolled charters inscribed on vellum, one for each of them, were sealed with wax using the great silver seal of the exchequer, binding the ribbon interleaved into the document and making it official. It was a great honour to be made a sheriff and she wished them well of it.

Then was the moment she had been waiting for.

"End it now," said Krane, "before he causes any more trouble. Garvin?" I saw the flash as the blade came up.

"Wait," said Kimlesh. "He has earned our gratitude. He and Blackbird restored the barrier when without it all would have been lost. Surely that is enough to save his life?"

"You'd let him walk away, knowing what he knows?" said Krane.

"A boon then," said Kimlesh. "His life is forfeit but we will grant him a boon for his service to the courts. We have much at our disposal. What would you ask of us?" he said to me.

"Are you offering me compensation so you can kill me without feeling guilty?"

"I regret this, truly, but I can see no other way. Come, what would you have from us?"

"I would have three things, then."

"Three? Oh very well. Name them."

"The first is for Blackbird. She needs somewhere safe and secure to live while she is pregnant. Somewhere with trees."

"It is done," said Kimlesh. "What else?"

"For my daughter, Alex. If she comes into her power then I want her to have a place in the courts, whatever her nature turns out to be."

"If she is wraithkin, then it is not within our power to grant," said the Ogre woman, Barthia.

"Aside from that, then. Will you take her?"

"We will," agreed Barthia.

"That leaves the third," said Kimlesh. "Three is the trick of it. What will you have?"

"And now we come to the rendering of quit rents in respect of two petty sergeantries held directly of the crown, one for the Forge in Tweezers Lane, just south of St Clement Danes, and the other for the wasteland known as the Moors, in the county of Shropshire, formerly the county of Salop. The quit rent for the former is six horse shoes and sixty-one nails."

"I have them here, my lord," said the Comptroller, indicating the items laid out on the black and white chequered cloth of the Exchequer.

"Will you count them out?"

With exaggerated care, the Comptroller lifted each horseshoe in turn, the huge size of them making his hands look small. He showed each of them to the assembled court.

"There are six, my lord, and the nails are here. Ten, twenty… " He laid bundles of nails, each tied in a bundle with blue ribbon, on the squares of black and white draped over the bench. "Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty and…" He patted his pockets absently, then more urgently.

There was a tense moment, but then he smiled and produced the final nail, the one Ben had pried from Niall's lacerated fingers and returned to Claire along with the knives.

"Sixty-one nails, my lord."

"Good number!" called the Queen's Remembrancer in response and cracked his gavel down hard on the bench.

"And the knives? Do they meet the test?"

This was her part and her stomach clenched as she went to retrieve the Dead Knife from its place. She picked it out of the box carefully, reminded of what had happened when Niall had held it. Reassuringly it kept the same dull sheen she had always known. She walked forward and placed the knife, edge up, against the bench.

The Comptroller walked forward, a length of green hazel twig, one year's growth in length, in his hand. They exchanged a nervous smile. There had been the time when a bumptious upstart from the City had usurped the Comptroller's place and decided to test the knives himself. Neither knife had broken the rod, despite strenuous effort on his part. The Remembrancer of the time had been forced to fine the Highsmiths for non-payment, and they had not been happy.

He held the rod on either side of the knife and pressed down. The rod bent over the edge but it did not break. The Dead Knife had done its job.

She turned back to where the box for the knives was placed and replaced the Dead Knife, retrieving the newly forged Quick Knife in its place. The broad leaf of the blade was dark metal, but the edge shone bright where Ben had sharpened it. She stepped forward again, holding the knife up momentarily for effect, and then placed it edge up on the bench.

Now came the moment of truth. This was the test. If the knife was remade then it would cut through the hazel rod and the barrier would be sealed. If not…

She looked around at the ranked faces in the benches craning to see. None of them realised how much would change if the knife failed the test.

The Comptroller stepped forward again with the rod. As he held the rod out, she realised his hand was shaking, very slightly. He couldn't possibly know the significance of this, could he? She looked up into his face and saw uncertainty there, and then he grinned.

He pressed the rod down on the knife dramatically and stumbled forward slightly as the knife cleaved through the rod as if it wasn't there. He'd pressed much harder than he needed to and his chin came unexpectedly close to the burnished edge. Claire whipped the knife away, concerned he would be cut. Her concern was not so much for the Comptroller but for the knife. Lord only knew what would happen if they got blood on it.

Regaining his composure, the Comptroller turned and held the two pieces of the rod high for all to see.

"The knives have passed the test, my Lord."

"Good service!" intoned the Remembrancer, banging his gavel down again. "That concludes the rendering of the quit rents." He smiled broadly at the assembly.

Claire carefully turned and replaced the knife next to its twin in the wooden case. She closed the lid and fixed the catch and then let out a long sigh. There had been no clap of thunder, no peal of bells, but she'd felt the knife in her hand after it had split the hazel rod. The tingle of power that shivered through it was all the confirmation she needed.

It was done.

"The third thing." I took a deep breath and released it slowly, then I told them. "I would have you know that if you take my life, here and now, then by the end of the week there will be notices posted all over Covent Garden, Leicester Square and random parts of central London describing the nature and reason for my death. They will detail the nature of the ceremony, the schism with the Seventh Court, the purpose of the two knives, the horseshoes and the sixty-first nail, and the fact that you have had me killed to prevent the knowledge from being discovered."

There was silence.

"I beg your pardon?" said Kimlesh.

"I think you heard me well enough."

"How?" said Barthia. "How can you achieve this? You'll be dead."