At two o’clock in the afternoon, the low winter sun began its slow, unrushed slide toward the western limestone rim of the basin, casting long, clean shadows across the cobblestones of Tram Square.
Len Vey remained seated on the wooden dispatch bench near the open freight doors of the tram shed. His braced left arm had settled into a heavy, throbbing numbness beneath the tight linen wraps. But his right hand was steadily turning the leaves of his leather-bound postal register, auditing the delivery tallies that young runners were bringing back from the River and Orchard wards. Every entry was with a checked receipt. A signed name in carpenter’s graphite, a wax seal thumb-print, or a simple cross witnessed by a neighbor.
Across the square. There, the southern transit hall entered from the Gate Ward, a small, weary party of travelers appeared through the open archway.
They were with two former border guards who carried no copper batons and wore no official city court cockades on their wool caps. Walking at the head of the group, her brown wool traveling cloak caked with road dust from the mountain pass, was a middle-aged woman whose face was pale and drawn with the hollow, sick tiredness of a traveler who had spent three weeks waiting in an outside staging inn for news that never arrived.
