nobleman whose grandfather had caused a fine family mansion to be erected on the
site had wasted his substance in gambling, and at last was reduced to eking out
his days in genteel drunkenness in an improvised fourth storey of wattle and
daub, laid out across the original roof, while downstairs Melilot installed his
increasingly large staff and went into the book – as well as the epistle
business. On hot days the stench from the bindery, where size was boiled and
leather embossed, bid fair to match the reek around Shambles Cross.
Not all fortunes, be it understood, were declining. Melilot’s was an instance.
Then years earlier he had owned nothing but his clothing and a scribe’s
compendium; then he worked in the open air, or huddled under some tolerant
merchant’s awning, and his customers were confined to poor litigants from out of
town who needed a written summary of their case before appearing in the Hall of
Justice, or suspicious illiterate purchasers of goods from visiting traders who
wanted written guarantees of quality.
On a never-to-be-forgotten day, a foolish man instructed him to write down
matter relevant to a lawsuit then in progress, which would assuredly have
convinced the judge, had it been produced without the opposition being warned.
Melilot realized that, and made an extra copy. He was richly rewarded.
Now, as well as carrying on the scribe’s profession – by proxy, mostly – he
specialized in forgery, blackmail, and mistranslation. He was exactly the sort
of employer Jarveena of Forgotten Holt had been hoping for when she arrived,