I didn't sit in my father's chair right away.
At first, I set up another desk on the opposite side of the study and moved the family's warehouse receipts and account records there, checking them one entry at a time. Grayridge had been only one territory. Here, the same numbers could conceal completely different old grudges between the five packs.
Edmund made me read years of treaties alongside the transaction records. The accounts alone could tell me where the money had gone, but if I wanted both sides to sit down together, I also had to know where their grudges came from.
I audited accounts during the day and read old treaties at night. After I revised several proposals, he finally let me take sole responsibility for the winter reserve deliveries.
Little by little, the work became min
