The three basswood planks that Venn laid across the zinc table measured fourteen feet from end to end, planed true from seasoned coach timber and scrubbed with dry cornmeal until the grain showed white and smooth under the lantern light.
Ivara Quill refused to sit on the timber stool Doma brought her. She stood on her right foot, her left hip braced hard against the zinc lip of the table. Her wooden crutch was tucked into her empty armpit. In her sound right hand, despite the purplish swelling that banded her wrist, she held a thick chunk of white carpenter’s chalk. Her knuckles were caked with the dry, white powder of powdered limestone from the chimney pipes. But her grip on the chalk was unbending.
“Clear the salt shakers and the grease tins,” Ivara said, her voice dry and rasping as she swept a stray cabbage leaf onto the floor. “Urel, bring the two-foot brass rule and the dividers. Len, stand at the far end and hold the timber steady so the board doesn’t shift when the chalk bites.”
Len moved to the head of the table, resting his sound right palm against the end grain of the basswood, his sounding staff leaned against his thigh. He felt the faint, rhythmic tremor of the ground beneath his soles. The distant, deep shaking of the central high-pressure pumps two miles down the valley, throbbing through the soaked gravel of the rail beds. Behind him, thirty delegates and shop foremen leaned over…
