The rain had slackened by midday. That left the air over Fish Street cold, raw, and smelled of wet soot and sulfur vapor. Along the narrow alley, the crowd of fifty miracle-seekers had shrunk to twenty. But those who remained stood huddled beneath dripping oilskin capes and torn wool blankets. Their eyes were locked on Sister Merrow’s porch with sullen, desperate persistence.
The back kitchen door opened.
Eren Tal stepped onto the landing carrying a four-foot slab of clear white pine, two inches thick, freshly planed on both faces with his jack-plane so the sweet, clean scent of resin cut through the sulfur stench. Across his leather apron hung his heavy framing mallet, an iron gimlet, and four long wrought-iron spikes.
Beside him walked Pella Rook. She was carrying a clay pot of black asphaltum varnish and a flat hog-bristle brush, her bottle-green tunic clean and brushed, her dark hair combed back and tied securely with hemp cord.
Eren laid the pine slab across two empty firkins on the porch. He didn’t look at the waiting crowd. He took his rule, marked four holes along the top and bottom edges. Then he bored through the wood with rapid, clean turns of his gimlet, leaving neat piles of pale curly shavings on the flat stone slabs.
