The Muster Rolls

The Muster Rolls begin as paperwork and end as boots, wheels, smoke, saws, carts, stretchers, reserve blades, timber quotas, and household absences at supper. They record who must serve, what each district owes, which foundries are exempt, and which noble streets pretend their sons are too necessary elsewhere. Lysa Merrow's predecessors learned generations ago that mobilisation fails first in ink. The Rolls are beautiful in their terrible honesty: every family can see the realm asking. They are dreadful because the realm may ask for almost everything. Their cost is counted not only in service, but in empty chairs, borrowed carts, roofs left unrepaired, and poor streets asked to bleed cleanly while richer ones argue exemptions.