Doma Reel hooked the leg of a three-legged ash stool with the toe of her clog, dragged it scraping across the flat stone slabs, and planted herself at the center of the map table.
She leaned her heavy forearms on the pine boards, her stance commanding, unbending, and rooted like a foundation pier. Her dark eyes swept over the group. Len Vey standing on the north side with his braced arm held tight in its linen cradle. Ivara Quill leaning over her drafting sheets with her single, ink-stained hand. And Bram Ash, who had just stepped down from the wooden bench by the east wall, his oil can lowered, his tow-rag dangling from his fingers.
“Before we talk about Foreman Marr and the Great Quarry,” Doma said, her voice dropping into a low, ringing register that shook through the timber of the table, “we settle the law of this room.”
Bram stopped four paces back, the yellow lamplight catching the rough contours of his gray beard and the deep, hollow tiredness carved beneath his cheekbones.
“I’m listening, Doma,” Bram said.
“You’d better be,” she said, her index finger stabbing down onto the pine boards beside Deren Vey’s cracked brass bell. “Because this isn’t a conspiracy of thieves trading favors in a cellar, Ash. We’re not Chancellor Morn, and we’re not Magistrate Pell. We don’t deal in private exemptions, secret pardons, or midnight indemnities signed behind closed velvet curtains.”
