I Was Never Their First Choice novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Eleven Wagons

"The Hold pays for nothing," my father said. "Those wagons were a trade for winter hunting rights."

"Then you won't mind if I read the tally," I said.

I stepped away from Asta and onto the open floor.

Kjell came forward from the back with the Hold's ledger in his arms, and placed it on the table where the envoy's had sat on the night of the lot.

He opened it to the Silverbrook page and stepped back without a word.

I had told him not to speak for me.

He had remembered.

"Eleven wagons of grain and iron for each trial wolf the Hold took from this pack," I read. "Paid in the winter after the lot. Three wolves, three payments. The last was the farrier's son, sent in my place."

A woman near the front said, "Sent?"

"Sent," I said. "And paid for. And a fourth payment was waiting for me."

"Forgery," my father said.

"Then explain the new granary roof."

Nobody in the hall breathed.

I had balanced the roof account myself.

I had written iron, unspecified source.

"I have more," I said.

I took three letters from inside my coat and held them up one by one.

I read from one of the letters. "Do not tell the girl she was asked for," it said. "She will start to think she is worth something."

A sound went around the hall, and the people nearest me stepped back.

"You'll know the hand," I said. "Most of you have signed under it."

An old woman by the wall said clearly, "That's his seven."

"It's a forgery," my father said again, but his voice had gone thin.

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