Len moved without a sound across the frozen pine boards of the bitter salt ward. That kept his weight over the centers of his feet so that the dry timber wouldn’t creak against the floor beams. His Road Sense shook through the leather of his boots. He felt the shaking of iron-shod soles fifty paces ahead in the main entrance entry hall. One man, heavy-set, moving with the slow, careful rhythm of a clerk who had walked the same six halls every morning for eight years.
Len reached the double oak doors that separated the fever pavilion from the central hall. He knelt on his right knee. His sounding pole was tucked beneath his arm. Then he pressed his eye to the tiny crack between the doorframe and the latch door post.
The main entrance hall of the Town Sickroom was paved with dressed flat stone slabs of black dark rock, lit only by a single copper reflector lantern resting on the counter of the reception desk. The green light was faint, sickly, and flickering in the draft from the open street doors, throwing long, distorted shadows across the whitewashed walls.
Standing before the counter was an officer wearing the black oilskin cape and polished iron gorget of the Judge’s Internal Security Corps. He had unbuttoned his wool gloves, his fingers blue with cold as he flipped through the stiff parchment leaves of an official country docket. Under his left arm was tucked a brass-tipped measuring rod. At his belt…
