The dawn broke over Lathmere without sunlight. Only a cold, rotten-egg yellow murk that hung over the churning river like a funeral shroud. In the High Senate Chamber, Master Davin Sorell stood alone before the raised bar, his azure robes clean, his golden medallion resting against his chest. But his pale hands gripped the walnut railing with white-knuckled intensity.
On the flat stone slabs before him sat the snapped six-inch iron gudgeon from Miller Tom’s mill, resting on its bed of oily hemp. Beside it stood Corvin and Kel Dorr, flanked by six town guards in blackened breastplates. On the high bench sat Councilor Elna Vesk, her dark wool cloak drawn tight. It was flanked by eleven senior senators from the merchant wards.
‘You received the Council’s reduction order twelve hours ago, Master Sorell,’ Vesk said, her voice echoing in the cold, cavernous hall. ‘You didn’t reduce flow. Instead, you drove iron wedges into the bypass racks, locked Gate Three shut. Then it blew forty-eight thousand foot-pounds of high-pressure backing-up pressure into the Lowbank mill race, nearly drowning two apprentices in their work.’
Sorell held his head high, his voice carrying the practiced, ringing music of academy oratory. ‘A tragic working accident, Councilman. The elemental spirit Senn experienced an unforeseen ringing tremor due to seasonal dirt in the runoff. The apprentices mistook a temporary locking pin for a permanent wedge. If the Works Board had not agitated the uneducated mob on the docks, this minor irregularity would have been corrected…
