Before lowering his boots into the black water of the drainage pit, Bram Ash reached inside the breast of his fustian waistcoat. His uninjured left hand worked beneath the blood-stiffened linen that bound his right ribs. He drew out two thick, oilskin-bound notebooks.
The notebooks were heavy, their covers stained with grease, lamp soot, and the pale bitter salt dust of seven years of night service. The edges of the paper were marbled in red and black ink, the bindings heavy with waxed linen thread that Bram had stitched himself at the guard post workbench.
Young Constable Peter stood at the edge of the check pit. He shivered in his blue trousers and civilian wool coat. He had discarded his leather helmet. His brass-bound was heavy club, and his Survey cross-belts. But his face still carried the pale, stunned tiredness of a recruit whose universe had collapsed within an hour.
“Take these, Peter,” Bram said, holding the two volumes out toward the boy.
Peter paused, his hands trembling as he reached into the draft. “What are they, Bailiff Ash?”
“They’re seven years of names,” Bram answered. His voice dropped into the quiet, matter-of-fact register of an armory clerk taking inventory of damaged rifles. “Every shift roster from the central precinct. Every emergency supply order signed by Magistrate Pell. Every gate code used at the southern canopy. The exact weights of the flour and animal fat wagons that were diverted from the public granaries to the high judge’s villa on the…
