Melli held the parchment to the yellow light of an oil lamp, squinting at the Grower’s Guild stamp. She knew Elsi’s mark. The woman was stingy as a mountain goat. But she had never broken a signed voucher in twenty years. Food was what her shift needed. Her fire tenders had been working on half-rations of watery turnip broth since Pell seized the flour wagons on Day 3.
“Fifty sacks,” Melli muttered, her thumb tracing the embossed rim of the wax seal. She looked at her shop foreman, Jarek, who was standing beside the anvil with a heavy pair of crucible tongs resting across his leather apron. “Hear that, Jarek? Real bean meal. Thick enough to stand a spoon in. And citrus rind to keep your gums from bleeding into your teeth.”
Jarek nodded slowly, his soot-blackened face splitting into a wide, weary grin that showed three missing teeth. “Tell me we’re pouring, Mistress. My boys are ready to pull the pots. We’ve got two tons of borax batch sitting in the hoppers that will go cold if we don’t drop the gates.”
Melli turned back to Ivara, her expression hardening once more into the sharp, unsparing scrutiny of a master artisan.
