Pella Rook unrolled a large town map across the uninjured section of the cedar frame stands, weighting the corners with four heavy brass line-weight bobs. The map showed the entire lower river basin of Lathmere, with the residential wards shaded in blue and the commercial timber basins shaded in dark yellow.
‘We don’t simply blow the gate and pray, Councilor Vesk,’ Pella began, her grease pencil tracing a network of backup drainage canals that ran behind the heavy-duty district. ‘If you open the Third Gate all at once, you will submerge the weavers’ cottages under four feet of muddy water. That is why the answer is rather than a single gate, a distributed cascade of three controlled relief basins.’
She tapped the large yellow area labeled Collegiate Timber Polders. ‘Here. The High Guildhall owns forty acres of deep-water holding basins where timber merchants float their pine logs before auction. These basins have five-foot stone retaining dikes and are connected directly to the South Flume by three ancient water gate under-road drains.’
Councilor Elna Vesk stared at the map, her breath catching in her throat. ‘Those basins contain three hundred thousand gold silver coins worth of imported spruce and cedar logs. The Guildhall merchants will scream like wounded wolves if we flood their storage yards with river mud.’
