At five bells on the eighth afternoon, half an hour before the iron shutters of the Municipal Board of Works Annex were barred for the night, Pella Rook and Foreman Eren Tal climbed the Guildhall steps a second time.
With them walked Retired Lock Operator Renn Vos—a lean, iron-backed waterman of sixty-eight winters with a scarred ash staff in his fist—alongside Old Hob and Master Tarn from the almshouse.
Inside the high-ceilinged hearing room behind the drainage wicket, Senior Auditor Varo Nenn stood at the central oak check table with Senior Clerk Orwin Pell at his left elbow and Junior Examiner Corvin Hest of the Summoners’ College waiting stiffly at his right.
The air smelled of hot red sealing wax, damp broadcloth. The sharp metal tang of iron sand-shakers set beside the court registers.
Without a word of preamble, Eren Tal removed the cedar cap from his carrying tube and unrolled the six-foot linen plat of the Fourth Ward across the oak table, weighting the four corners with the Commission’s heavy brass inkstands.
There, stretched taut from the base of the Hollow Crown foundation bluff straight down to the sealed iron gate of the Old Ferry Intake, ran the scarlet cobbler’s thread connecting twelve crimson-tipped brass pins.
