By mid-morning, the central tram shed had taken on the orderly, rhythmic commotion of an active freight end-post.
The fifty straw pallets along the check pit were largely quiet now. The wounded was resting under coarse wool blankets as the bitterness of the northern willow-bark spirit-extract took hold in their blood, subduing the ragged fevers that had burned through the third and fourth wards for three days. On the dispatch counter beside Len Vey’s bench, six wooden carrying panniers—lightweight crates woven from peeled willow withes and heavy with ash-wood corner stays—sat in an even row. Their canvas covers pulled was tight against the dust.
Each pannier was tagged with a crisp linen manifest, inscribed in Heth Ash’s neat, upright handwriting, checked against the master tally by Ivara Quill, and counter-signed with the black ink stamp of the Tern Road postal network.
Len sat on the edge of the dispatch bench, his boots planted flat on the concrete floor, his weight resting square and balanced upon his pelvis thanks to the quiet, internal shape of Carrying Balance. His left arm remained rigidly locked still in its fresh ash-wood splints and clean white sling, resting against his ribs like a secured cargo parcel. But his right hand was free, holding his station pencil and a brass ruler.
