At noon the next day Adrian had Hugo Pell and Oswin Vale summoned to the old map room.
He chose the room deliberately. The ledgers lay stacked beneath the eastern fort maps and under the gaze of dead Merrows who had once believed the county's frontier mattered. Men lied more carefully when surrounded by reminders they had failed somebody besides the present listener.
Hugo arrived sweating though the room was cold. Oswin arrived composed.
Adrian did not offer either of them a seat.
He stood behind the table with three ledgers opened side by side.
"Explain these," he said.
Hugo swallowed. "If your lordship would indicate which line items concern him—"
Adrian placed one finger on the first page. "Fort Alderwatch garrison rations."
Hugo glanced down. "Yes, my lord. Standard disbursement under the frontier maintenance account."
"Fort Alderwatch was abandoned three years ago."
Hugo's lips parted. Oswin answered instead. "The account remained active because some guard presence in the line had to be preserved on paper while reorganization was considered."
"On paper," Adrian repeated. "A revealing phrase."
He moved to the next ledger.
"Road timber allocation for the east approach."
Hugo licked his lips. "That would have been contracted through local suppliers for anticipated repairs."
"Name the suppliers."
"I would need to consult—"
"I already did," Adrian said. "One is dead. One left Greyfen for the south two winters ago. One never existed at all." He lifted his eyes. "Shall we continue?"
Silence.
He turned a page in the household accounts.
"Coal deliveries for the family apartments. Paid in full. Yet my wife and son spent the winter in north gallery rooms with one half-dead hearth. Where did the coal go?"
Hugo looked near collapse.
Oswin remained upright. "Household distribution decisions are often made flexibly in response to guests, weather, kitchen need, and overall scarcity."
"And always in one direction?"
Still Oswin did not crack. Adrian began to understand why men like him survived changes in lordship. They did not panic merely because facts existed. They relied on structure, on custom, on the long habit by which no noble ever followed a fact far enough to make it expensive.
So Adrian changed the problem.
He lifted the county seal from the table and set it down between them.
Hugo went pale.
Oswin's pupils narrowed by a fraction.
"You said the key was missing," Adrian said. "Yet the seal seems to have found me."
Neither replied.
"I also found copies of extension letters using my authority after dates on which I gave no audience and signed nothing. I found replacement wax molds. I found revisions in these accounts written over scraped fiber. I found enough to conclude that incompetence is no longer the most merciful explanation available to either of you."
Hugo made a strangled sound. "My lord, please—"
"Who authorized the Bastion Exchange extension?"
Hugo looked at Oswin.
Adrian followed the look and notched the answer away.
"Who diverted the Alderwatch ration grain?"
Hugo whispered, "The steward's office certified the transfers, but part of it was sold through town brokers to cover urgent household expense."
"Which household expense?"
No answer.
"I will ask once more," Adrian said. "Which household expense?"
Hugo's knees seemed briefly unsure of themselves. "Gaming debts. Imported wine. Visiting retainers from Lord Berengar's wing. Stable purchases. Repairs to the south gallery guest suites."
There it was.
Not collapse by necessity. Comfort by cannibalism.
Oswin finally spoke. "My lord, if you intend to proceed on indignation alone, you will destroy what little flexibility the county has left. None of these decisions were ideal. All of them were survivable."
"Survivable for whom?"
"For the house."
Adrian looked at him for a long moment.
"No," he said. "For the people eating it."
He rang the handbell on the table.
Sir Roderic entered with two guards.
Hugo turned as if to flee, then seemed to remember too late where the door was.
"Master Pell will remain under watch in his own rooms until I finish examining the accounts," Adrian said. "No papers. No visitors. No fire larger than a lamp. He writes what I ask and nothing else."
Hugo sagged.
Oswin said, very evenly, "This is unwise."
Adrian met his gaze. "Then pray my wisdom does not improve further."
When Hugo was led away, Oswin remained in place.
"Do you mean to place me under guard as well?" he asked.
"Not yet," Adrian said. "You know too much too quickly for me to lock you up before I understand the shape of your usefulness. But from this hour your clerks answer directly to me. Your keys are surrendered. Any letter leaving Greyfen without my seal will be treated as treachery."
Oswin bowed with a stiffness new to him. "As my lord commands."
When he had gone, Sir Roderic studied Adrian in silence.
"You are wondering," Adrian said, "whether to be impressed or alarmed."
"I already chose alarm, my lord. Impress me later."
A sensible man.
"Very well," Adrian said. "Start by telling me which of my guards are paid on time, which serve Berengar before me, and which would follow the seal if they had to choose."
Sir Roderic's brows rose.
Then, slowly, he smiled.
"That," he said, "is a better question."