Alistair set the document down on the desk and did not sign it.
He also did not pretend to misunderstand it, since Aldous had just told him plainly that the pretending was finished, and Aldous was not a man you insulted twice in one evening.
The lamp threw a small circle of light across the paper. Alistair read the top line again, though he had read it twice already.
By order of the High Justicar, the bearer is attached to this office as an aide of record. Without rank. Without oath. Without term.
There was a blank line where a name should have been, waiting.
"You are certain, then," said Alistair.
"No," Aldous replied. "If I were certain, we would not be having this conversation. I would have signed a warrant, handed it to Mira before supper, and by morning you would be a name in the Sovereign Record with a date beside it."
He tilted his head a small degree.
