At four in the morning, Sister Merrow climbed the steep granite stairs to the High Dock granary, her wooden clogs clattering against the wet stones like musket fire. Behind her marched twelve Lowbank wagon drivers, their heavy cart carts drawn by massive, steam-breathing draft horses, their timber beds ready to haul provisions. The rain had turned into a sleet that stung the face and froze into gray rime along the stone copings.
The town granary was a huge castle of dressed freestone. Its double iron-plated doors were locked with three bronze padlocks. In the heated watchman’s lodge sat Master Scribe Orlo. He was wrapped in a fox-fur mantle, sipping spiced mulled cider while warming his slippers by a glowing charcoal fire bowl. When Merrow kicked the lodge door open, the draft blew his supply order forms across the floorboards.
‘What is the meaning of this insolence?’ Orlo spluttered, clutching his fox collar. ‘The town granary is closed until the ninth hour! No grain may be released without an approved voucher signed by the High Archon’s high judge!’
Sister Merrow slammed her heavy iron ladle onto the center of his ledger desk, the blow cracking the ink-stand and sending black droplets splashing across his silk sleeves. ‘Thirty families on Fish Street are sitting on their roofs in their nightshifts, Orlo! Miller Tom’s mill is smashed, and the flour bins are drowning in river slime! I have twelve cots full of shivering watermen and three boys with crushed bones who need hot…
