The iron door latch of the back kitchen clattered against the door post. It was followed by the wet, slapping sound of heavy legal overshoes crossing the threshold.
Auditor Varo Nenn entered the workshop like a man escaping an impending deluge. He was forty-one years old, possessed the sharp, angular carriage of someone who spent forty hours a week arguing with timber merchants over import tariffs. Then he wore a woolen clerk’s cloak that was dark with rain around the hem. Under his left arm he clamped a battered zinc map metal tube, secured by two brass buckled straps and a crumbling lump of red wax.
“Close the latch, Eren,” Nenn said, his breath fogging in the chill air of the back kitchen. He didn’t offer a formal greeting. He pulled off his wet sheepskin gloves. He tucked them beneath his arm, and laid the metal tube across the oak bench right beside Hal Rook’s brass measuring tongs. They were mottled along their pivot with green copper green rust. “The street outside is crawling with college exam guards. Two beadles were standing by the fish weigh-scales when I crossed the canal bridge, taking notes on everyone carrying parchment.”
“They know you went into the deep vault?” Pella asked, rising from her stool.
