Scribes in Action in Port Kar

When Henrius has his men set the arsenal on fire in the plot to take over Port Kar, scribes are sent out admist the chaos to gather information.

"I am going to the arsenal," I said. I turned to one of the captains. "Have scribes investigate and prepare reports on the extent of the damage, wherever it exists. Also have captains ascertain the military situation in the city. And have patrols doubled, and extend their perimeters by fifty pasangs."
Raiders

Scribes kept the important records:

"Individual trees, not in the perserves, which are claimed by Port Kar, are marked with the seal of the arsenal. The location of all such trees is kept in a book available to the Council of Captains."
Raiders

When the Council of Captains is under fire from crossbows shot by the men of Henrius -

"Gather up and guard the book of the Council," I told the Scribe who had been at the great table.
"Yes, Captain," said he, leaping to seize it up.
Raiders

Diligent through the chaos

"Candles were lit on several of the tables. Papers were strewn about. There were few scribes or pages there. Of the usual seventy or eighty, or so, captains of the approximately one hundred and twenty entitled to sit in the council, only some thirty or forty were present.
And even as I entered some two or three left the hall.
The scribe, haggard behind the great table, sitting before the book of the council, looked up at me."
Raiders

At the time there were Ubars in Port Kar, Scribes were their representatives at the meetings:

"The Ubars were represented on the council, to which they belonged as being themselves Captains, by five empty thrones, sitting before the semicircles of curule chairs on which reposed the captains. Beside each empty throne there was a stool from which a Scribe, speaking in the name of the Ubar, participated in the proceedings of the council. The Ubars themselves remained aloof, seldom showing themselves for fear of assassination."

It is a scribe for one of these Ubars, that bans Tersites from the hall:

"Now, crying to come before the council, was the mad, half-blind shipwright Tersites, a scroll of drawings in his hand, and calculations.
At a word from the scribe at the long table before the thrones of the Ubars, two men put Tersites from the chamber, dragging him away."
Raiders

Scribes reviewed the previous meetings for the Captains:

"A scribe, at a large table before the five thrones, was droning the record of the last meeting of the council."

And called & tracked the decisions of the Captains:

"I now ask the table scribe," said Samos, "to call the roll of Captains."

"Bejar," called the scribe.
"Bejar accepts the proposals of Samos," said a captain, a dark-skinned man with long, straight hair, who sat in the second row, some two chairs below me and to the right.
"Bosk," called the scribe.
"Bosk," I said, "abstains."
Samos, and many of the others, looked at me, quickly.
"Abstention," recorded the scribe."

Raiders

The newly formed Council of Captains, the power of Port Kar, swiftly takes charge of the city:

"Several committees were formed, usually headed by scribes but reporting to the council, to undertake various studies pertaining to the city, particularly of a military and commercial nature. One of these studies was to be a census of ships and captains, the results of which were to be private to the council. Other studies, the results of which would be kept similarly private to the council, dealt with the city defenses, and her stores of wood, grain, salt, stone and tharlarion oil. Also considered, though nothing was determined that night, were matters of taxation, the unification and revision of the codes of the five Ubars, the establishment of council courts, replacing those of the Ubars, and the acquistion of a sizable number of men-at-arms, who would be directly responsible to the council itself, in effect, a small council police or army. Such a body of men, it might be noted, though restricted in numbers and limited in jurisdiction, already existed in the arsenal."
Raiders

"I gestured for the two slaves at the rack windlass to again rotate the heavy wooden wheels, moving the heavy wooden pawl another notch in the beam ratchet. Again there was a creak of wood and the sound of the pawl, locking, dropping into its new notch. The thing fastened on the rack threw back its head on the cords, screaming only with his eyes. Another notch and the bones of its arms and legs would be torn from their sockets.
"What have you learned?" I asked the scibe, who stood with his tablet and stylus beside the rack.
"It is the same as the others," he said. "They were hired by the men of Henrius Sevarius, some to slay captains, some to fire the wharves and arsenal."
The scribe looked up at me. "Tonight," he said, "Sevarius was to be Ubar of Port Kar, and each was to have a stone of gold."
Raiders

The scribe seems to be in charge of the interrogation:

"Then Samos addressed himself to the Scribe near the rack. He gestured toward the other racks. "Take down these men," he said, "and keep them chained. We may wish to question them further tomorrow."
Raiders

Warriors (a sort of "tax-collector") from Port Kar on barges enter the marshes, firing crossbows upon the rencers on the islands to drive them into their nets.

"Near the oar pole to which I had been bound, some yards from what had been the circle of the dance, a number of rencers, stripped, men and women, lay bound hand and foot. They would later be carried, or forced to walk, to the barges. From time to time a warrior would add further booty to this catch, dragging or throwing his capture rudely among the others. These rencers were guarded by two warriors with drawn swords.
A scribe stood by with a tally sheet, marking the number of captures by each warrior."
Raiders