The cutting floor of Dima Fen’s workshop on the lower canal smelled of raw, unwhitened flax, sheep fat, hot tailor’s irons. The rich, pungent scent of boiled beeswax. Twelve town water gate workers and ferry draymen stood in a line along the pine benches, their massive, weather-beaten frames looking awkward and uncomfortable among the bolts of sailcloth and dressmaker’s dummies. Rain beat a steady tattoo against the frosted glass skylight. It ran down in grimy tracks from the coal soot of the river tugs.
Dima stood over Renn Vos, a wooden tape measure draped around her neck, a pair of heavy drop-forged shears in her hand. Beside her, Sister Merrow sat with a clay pot mug of boiled tea and a dry sourdough crust, inspecting the stitching along the cuff linings. The damp chill of wet stonework seeped in through the riverward foundation. It mixed with the sharp, stone tang of pipe lime from the open sewer trenches outside.
“Lift your left elbow, Renn,” Dima commanded, her voice brooking zero argument from a man who had steered sixty-ton timber lighters through the rapids for thirty years. “Higher. Put your hand behind your neck as if you’re reaching for an overhead safety chain while slipping on wet canal slime.”
