Sealwright Hall

The Hall of the Worshipful Company of Sealwrights stands on a willow island in the Brisk a mile below Summerhythe, reached by a flat ferry pulled along a chain. Above ground it is a college: cloisters, scriptoria, a chapter house with a red-tiled roof, and the gatehouse where the Master lives. Below ground are the Wax Vaults.

Points of interest

• The entrance court. Where every visitor waits to be recognised, and where Oswy Hebden met the Wardens on day 3.
• The scriptoria. Long rooms of sloped desks where apprentices copy contracts and journeymen seal them.
• The Wax Vaults. Three levels of vaulted cellars cut into the island’s rock, lined with shelves of sealed documents in wax-dipped cases. The lowest level holds Crown documents, and the Crown’s copy of the lease.
• The ink cisterns. The Hall’s own ink is made in stone tanks at the foot of the vaults. Some of it does not stay in the tanks.

The Wax Vaults

The vaults are dark, dry and warm, because the wax must not crack. Each case is marked with a shelf-mark in the Company’s cipher, and Clemency Vare can find any of them by touch. The lowest level is guarded by smirches: ink that has soaked up so many sealed promises that it crawls. The Sealwrights call them the vaults’ own ink, and consider them staff.

Notable people

The Master, Oswy Hebden. The Under-Archivist, Clemency Vare. The missing apprentice, Jory Penwarden, whose peg still hangs empty in the apprentices’ hall.