Sturmhalt

A Sturmhalt daughter went to Vaddrek in 801 with 200 barrels of oil and the recitation that goes with them, and the settlement exists twice, sworn aloud at the Hrimgard assembly and cut in lead at the Ironfurrow gate. The texts differ on what becomes of the oil if the marriage fails, and Vaddrek's clerks hold that the metal governs.

Kaldwyn has no wall and no landward road, so twelve of the Watch's men and one boat sit at the oil works from first ice to thaw. The rate was sworn in 761 AF against a fixed quantity of train oil, and Kaldwyn has declined to reopen it at eleven assemblies running.

At every Hrimgard assembly the Watch's speaker moves that the plates be read aloud once a year at the Forge, and Steinvald's ironletters answer the motion in writing without having been asked. Sturmhalt's stake stands in the register as Breaks and Steinvald's as Holds, and both sides now quote the entry at each other rather than the argument.

Men sent to the Cinders on twelve-year terms who die there are walled into the rock behind Steinvald's working face at four marks a course, under a licence Steinvald grants the Watch by the year. Sturmhalt's chapel then calls the names at three assemblies, and neither house will concede which rite fulfilled the obligation.

Tessarel carts four hundred reindeer carcasses and ninety quarters of oats down to Sturmhalt's each autumn, before the frost shuts the terrace road. Sturmhalt settles a third in whale oil and the rest in escort along Malgareth's drove track, which Tessarel's clerks enter as payment and the Watch's clerks enter as a courtesy.

The cairn-chapel roof, the Watch's boat frames and every coffin-board on the point come out of Duskenmoor's yard, sixty rafts a season worked round the inlet mouth. Duskenmoor is asked each year to swear the delivery at the Hrimgard assembly and each year sends a written charter instead, which somebody else reads out and nobody answers.

Cindralis burns its dead in a walled ground an easy walk up the shore from the Watch's cairn-field, and on a westerly the smoke crosses the point. Sturmhalt's chapel has twice asked for the burning to be moved inland, and Cindralis has twice offered to pay for the asking to stop.

The Watch's winter payroll has been drawn on Cindralis since 788 AF, a hundred and sixty marks a quarter against the following season's oil. Cindralis requires the obligation in writing and Sturmhalt will only swear it, so the compound keeps a Falkvald clerk whose whole employment is standing in a room and listening.