Sister Merrow’s kitchen washroom was ordinarily the cleanest domestic workspace in Lowbank. Every morning at five o’clock, Merrow scrubbed the flat stone slabs with boiling well-water, river sand, and harsh potash lye, scouring away the coal dust and the grease until the grey river limestone shone like dry bone. The copper wash-vats along the southern wall were polished with vinegar. The linen drying racks smelled of clean lavender and dried chamomile.
By half past eight on the morning of the ninth day, that clean order was fully wiped out.
Outside the wicket gate that led from the back kitchen porch to the narrow rear alley, fifty men and women were packed three deep against the palings. They weren’t the quiet, cowed property owners who had waited for Pella’s triage two days earlier. They were wild-eyed, soaked to the bone, and waving their copper pennies and Master Garrow’s wet broadsheets in the air like banners.
“Open the gate, Merrow!” bellowed Master Orin, the owner of a steam-powered textile fulling mill on Mill Lane. His wool coat was soaked through, and his face was purple with fury. “My drying floor is under four inches of boiling salt water! The woolen blankets are shrinking on the tenterhooks! Bring out the Lightning Witch! I have ten silver coins here! I want her to strike my floor with her wrench and banish the water before noon!”
