The debate over the governor tolerances was interrupted by the rapid clatter of iron-shod boots running across the wooden walkway planks of Track Two.
Bevin Soot’s junior clerk, a skinny boy named Fenn whose face was white with cold road dust, stumbled through the doorway of the repair bay. He clutched a heavy, thirty-inch metal tube of oiled cedar to his chest. He was bound with three bands of braided brass wire and sealed at both ends with the red transit wax of the Northern Territorial Mail.
“Carrier Vey!” the boy gasped, dropping to his knees beside the zinc table. “The licensed freight coach from the northern canopy just cleared the boundary toll. The driver slipped this down the coal chute at the siding. He said it came off the express gig from the Highwater postal station two hours ago.”
Fenn’s lips were blue with cold, his woolen scarf soaked with freezing sleet. He wiped a trembling hand across his nose, breathing in ragged gasps. “The border road is turning to ice, Len. The royal guards on the outside are doubling their pickets. They said the territorial governor has ordered all civilian traffic halted at midnight.”
Len didn’t wait for an apprentice to find shears. He pulled his courier knife from his belt with his right hand, gripped the brass wire between his teeth. Then he snapped the soft metal with a sharp, violent twist of his blade. The cedar cap popped off with a hollow plink, releasing the clean…
