They paused at the corner of the service hall where the east wing joined the main medicine room hall. The floor here was paved with worn slate slabs, greasy with damp coal-dust and white streaks of dried disinfectant. Overhead, an unlit brass chandelier hung from a rusted iron chain, its six candle sockets filled with congealed sheep fat that had frozen into hard, yellow cylinders.
Ivara Quill didn’t put her leather map tube away. She rested her elbow against the paneled doorframe of the medicine room. Her single hand held her brass transit rule. Her thumb flicking the slid cursor back and forth along the logarithmic scale with a dry, rhythmic click.
“Look at the numbers, Len,” she whispered. Her breath misted in the freezing air, gray and thin. “Not the politics. The numbers are the only thing that won’t lie to you when the valves open.”
Len shifted his weight, his boots testing the slate underfoot. His Road Sense registered a deep, hollow deep ring six feet below. The main town drainage line from High District ran directly beneath the hall, carrying cold, stale sewage toward the river weir. His left forearm gave a vicious, burning throb beneath the cedar laths, the pressure of the horsehair stitches pulling tight against his swollen flesh.
