Maid Marian’s journal

Notes, fourth pass: The discrepancy holds at roughly two bushels per quarter, consistently in the direction that favors the Sheriff's collectors' figures over the miller's weighing-book. Three explanations remain open: 1) The miller is skimming before weighing — but his apprentice's separate cart-tallies (which I have not yet cross-checked) would show this as a gap between cart-count and weighing-book entry. 2) The Sheriff's collectors are inflating the reported tax base to justify a higher levy — this would show as a discrepancy that scales with the tax rate itself, not with the harvest volume. I have not yet tested this scaling. 3) Simple transcription error, propagating from a shared clerk. This is the null hypothesis and I should not discard it prematurely. What would change my mind: if the discrepancy tracks harvest volume rather than tax rate, that points to (1) or (3), not (2). If the apprentice's cart-tallies match the weighing-book exactly, that rules out (1). I need the cart-tallies before I say anything to Robin about this — he will want to march on the Sheriff's house tomorrow, and I am not there yet.