At first, Cossot thought she was fortunate. All Dame Sybyll asked of her was that she sat in the cell and wrote down Ian Hanrahan's confession. She didn't even have to watch what was happening before her. She could just focus on the sheet of parchment, the well of ink, and the quill pen in her hand.
She'd helped her father take notes while he worked on numerous occasions when she was still learning her letters. A whitesmith had to have skilled, steady hands as he poured molten tin, or worked carefully with his snips to refine initial castings. Rather than take his hands away from the work, he had told a much younger Cossot that he needed her to write down a list of molds that he used, the number of castings that failed, and all manner of other details.
