The morning arrived cold.
At that hour the citadel carried its own stillness. A building intact again, with work slowly returning to it. The smell of burning wood drifted through the corridor as Beorn walked toward the office he had claimed for administrative work.
Inside, Aestrith was already waiting.
She had placed two chairs facing the desk, evenly spaced. Now she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, watching the door.
"The first one is waiting in the corridor."
Beorn nodded. "Send them in."
Aestrith stepped out. Moments later she returned with a woman who entered at a calm pace and stopped just inside the room.
Her eyes moved over the space before settling on Beorn.
He had seen that look before.
She was old. Old from work.
Her hands rested together in front of her. The skin and calluses told enough of the story. Years spent cooking over open flames in cramped kitchens with poor ventilation. Her coat said the same. Worn, but carefully patched. Twice at least.
She remained standing until Beorn gestured toward the chair.
"You're from the slums?"
"Born elsewhere." She sat carefully. "Been in the slums these last five years, though."
He noted it.
"Your children are there?"
"Aye. Neighbor woman two buildings over keeps an eye on 'em." She rubbed one thumb against the other absently. "I mind hers when she needs it, she minds mine when I'm working. Been doing that a long while now."
"How old are they?"
"Little one's four. Older boy's seven."
Beorn picked up the charcoal and opened the ledger beside him. His hand moved without thought, sketching a rough rectangle across the page while his attention stayed on her.
"You cooked for the household that recommended you?"
"For them, aye. Before that, merchant stall work." Her gaze dipped toward the charcoal for a moment. "And before that a boarding house out east. Nine years there. Till the place stopped being a place."
She left the rest alone.
"I know my work," she continued. "Give me fresh food or scraps, I'll still put something proper in front of people. Nobody likes eating misery every day."
Beorn considered her for a moment.
"How many people can you feed regularly? A working household."
"Depends what I've got to work with."
The answer came too quickly for it to be new.
"If the hearth's sound, the pots aren't cracked, and provisions come steady, thirty easy enough. Three meals a day. Did forty twice during winter trade season." She shrugged faintly. "Hard going, but nobody left hungry."
Beorn adjusted the charcoal lines slightly.
"The citadel kitchen is larger than what you're used to. Right now it's understocked and barely used. That'll change."
He added a small note beside the sketch.
"You'd run the kitchen. Managing provisions when they arrive, deciding meal hours, reporting supply delays."
"I can handle that."
"Very well."
Beorn set the charcoal aside and looked at her directly.
"What information do you need before deciding?"
"The pay."
"Five silver per month. Full kitchen access. What you cook feeds you and the household. Provisions stay here."
She fell silent.
Beorn watched her eyes drift slightly, measuring numbers against reality. Two children. Shared childcare. Whatever she earned now.
"When would I start?"
"Tomorrow morning."
Again she studied him.
"If something happens, the children come here during the day."
Beorn considered it. A few children inside a citadel this large would matter little once staffing increased.
"When the staff grows, there'll be enough people here that it won't cause problems."
She weighed the answer against the room around her. The desk. The ledger. Aestrith against the wall.
Finally she nodded.
"Five silver," she repeated quietly.
"Indeed."
"Then we've got an agreement."
She rose, adjusted her coat, and left without ceremony. Aestrith closed the door behind her.
Beorn glanced down at the ledger.
The rectangle on the page now had a second line through it. He had not meant to draw it. His hand had simply kept moving until the shape became something unfinished.
He turned to a new section, wrote the woman's name beside a number, and prepared for the next interview.
The day found its rhythm.
Several others arrived. Basic work. Names taken from Aestrith's list. Each required meeting in person before anything was confirmed.
Most followed the same pattern. Questions. Answers. The number stated plainly. A decision made.
Two were gone in under three minutes.
Neither appeared on Aestrith's list.
Beorn did not ask why they had come. Instead he asked the only thing that mattered.
"What can you do?"
Their answers told him enough.
"Bit of this, bit of that. Carried freight before."
"I've worked wherever work needed doing."
Beorn refused both without explanation.
They left.
A third arrived who had not been listed either. The man had clearly spent time deciding how to carry himself before entering. He claimed someone in the warehouse district had told him the citadel was hiring.
He spoke politely. His answers were thorough. But when Beorn asked about previous work, the man's eyes stayed fixed on the desk.
"Mostly accounts adjacent, sir. Inventory handling. Coordination work. Some transport oversight."
The wording itself felt rehearsed.
Beorn thanked him for coming and told him no.
The man's expression closed as he left.
Other hires followed.
Two cleaners.
One records runner, a young woman who had worked for a notary until the office became entangled with Coss's supply network.
"I can read fast, write clean, and I don't lose documents," she told him. "That's more than most runners can claim."
One archivist. Older. Formerly responsible for records in a textile business.
"I'll keep records straight," she said. "I only ask that nobody asks me to alter them afterward."
Each role paid four silver per month.
By the time Godric knocked, the process had settled into a steady pace. A growing stack of notes rested at Beorn's elbow.
Godric entered and paused long enough to survey the room.
He checked the exits before he looked at the desk. Then he sat in the offered chair without turning the movement into ceremony.
His hands rested on his knees.
He waited.
Beorn had already picked up the charcoal again. This time the lines suggested part of a wall elevation.
"Aestrith said you served in the garrison."
"Served," Godric corrected. "Four years back. Commander's term ended. Capital never sent another."
Beorn understood the meaning immediately.
"So you left."
"The garrison stopped paying." Godric's tone remained even. "Stayed another three months to see whether the matter corrected itself."
"It didn't."
"No."
Godric met his eyes steadily.
"No point dressing rot in cleaner cloth."
"Good."
Beorn added another mark to the page.
"The role here is guard work. Citadel security. Day hours. The chain of command runs directly to this office."
"Directly."
"Yes."
Godric remained still.
"That raises a concern."
He spoke plainly, without apology.
"In this city, official authority rarely means much on its own. There's usually another hand behind it."
His gaze stayed fixed on Beorn.
"The last man here failed because the true authority wasn't the one sitting in the chair."
He leaned forward slightly.
"I need to know whether this turns into the same thing six months from now."
Beorn set the charcoal down.
The silence between them was deliberate.
"You know who runs this city."
"I know who has been running it."
"Then you're asking whether I'll make terms with him. And whether those terms will eventually control your position."
Beorn picked the charcoal up again.
"No. The role answers to me. That does not change when it becomes inconvenient."
Godric said nothing at first.
Something older than salary was being weighed. Whether Beorn would hold to that once pressure came.
Finally he spoke.
"You've been here less than a week. You don't yet have the weight to promise that."
"I know."
Beorn's tone remained matter-of-fact.
"I'm not claiming the outcome is secured already. I'm telling you what authority I intend to build. You can decide whether that's worth your time."
Another silence followed.
Outside the office someone walked the corridor. A door opened. Closed again. The sounds of a building slowly returning to life.
"You're not going to stand there claiming you're different from every other man who's held power here."
"No. You'll decide that for yourself."
Godric glanced down at his hands, then looked back up.
"What's the pay?"
"Eight silver a month. Equivalent to a standard garrison posting."
Beorn held his gaze.
"You know that's not what the garrison truly paid."
A faint shift crossed Godric's expression.
"No. But it's what the work should've been worth."
That answer took longer to consider than any previous one.
At last Godric nodded once.
"I'll take the post."
He stood. Beorn recorded the hire in the ledger.
After Godric left, Aestrith remained where she was, leaning against the wall. She studied the list in her hand, thumb moving slowly down the page.
"Some of the candidates you rejected weren't on my list."
Beorn looked up. "No?"
"Three of them." She kept reading. "I suspected something the moment they entered. They looked around the room instead of focusing on you."
She tapped the paper lightly.
"Their questions were wrong. The kind people ask when they're trying to learn what you're doing."
"And?"
She looked at him.
"You refusing them confirmed it."
Beorn considered that.
The charcoal was still in his hand. He looked down at the page. Wall elevation lines. Failed rectangles from earlier. Half-formed sketches that had appeared while interviews passed around him.
Then he chuckled.
"Who sends people to a job interview to gather intelligence?"
Aestrith's expression did not change. The same calm look she had worn while explaining the mistress cover earlier.
"Someone who's controlled this city for decades," she said, "and wants to know what you're hiring for."
Beorn turned the page.
"Who's next?"