The Great Gate
The only door that matters. (Creative interpretation.)
Canon status: creative interpretation.
The gate
The Great Gate is the only sanctioned way through Veyrhold's walls after dark: a double portcullis of black iron under an arch carved with the warden's sigil, set into the fortress-barracks of Gatewatch. By day it is a thoroughfare. By night it is a verdict.
The night's law
- At first bell, the outer portcullis comes down. No exceptions, no bribes, no rank.
- After moon's height, the gate does not open for anyone — not for merchants, not for magistrates, not for bells with no hand on the rope.
- The Black Warden alone can countermand the night's law, and Nyra has done it twice. Both times, the Ward's chronicle notes, she was right.
Why Nyra holds it personally
The gate is the Warden's post because the gate is the city's throat. Her line — "The gate holds because I hold it." (character voice; creative interpretation) — is not boast but job description. Everything the Ward does on the walls is the long way of saying: the gate stays shut.