The thunderous cheers of the market had barely subsided. Just then, the iron-rimmed boots of thirty academy exam guards echoed across the cobblestones of the High Bridge approach. The court guards marched in double ranks, dressed in scarlet wool tunics with polished breastplates. They carried five-foot iron-tipped axe-spears and brass-handled cutlasses.
At their head rode High Proctor Kenneth upon a tall black gelding, his velvet bicorne hat cocked arrogant and high. He held a folded parchment writ bearing the purple wax seal of Grand Master Davin Sorell.
‘Clear the square in the name of the Grand Council!’ Kenneth bellowed, his horse rearing on the wet cobbles as he reached the outer edge. ‘By order of the Board of Public Works, this assembly is declared unlawful, seditious, and treasonous! Scatter to your apartments, or the guard will clear the market with cold steel!’
Not a single lighterman moved. Not a single laundress stepped back.
Instead, the forty laundresses planted their ash clothes-props with a timed together wooden crack that sounded like a volley of musketry. Behind them, sixty lightermen stepped forward. Their heavy shoulders locked together, their faces cold, silent, and unmoving as granite retaining walls.
High Proctor Kenneth reached for the handle of his saber, his face purpling with high-born rage. ‘Insolent scum! Arrest that girl on the wagon! Seize that wooden contraption and smash it to splinters!’
