While Pella managed the legal framework, Eren Tal, Kel Dorr, and young Tavi were working by the light of three oil lamps in the cooperage shed, finishing three commercial repair orders to replenish the workshop’s silver reserves. The smell of freshly cut white oak shavings and hot pine pitch filled the air as Eren planed down a six-foot water gate leaf for the Watermen’s boat ramp.
Master Galt had paid two silver coins in advance, desperate to ensure his guild’s repair docks remained dry. Just then, the river crested. Miller Tom had contributed another silver coin and forty pounds of dry oatmeal from his high-and-dry warehouse stores in exchange for Eren’s ash shores in the collapsed wheel pit.
‘Three more silver coins in the till,’ Tavi announced proudly. He dropped the heavy coins into Sister Merrow’s iron strongbox with a loud clink. ‘We can buy another twenty minutes of Ada’s time if we need it!’
‘We don’t buy minutes like sweets at a fair, lad,’ Eren grunted, checking the square of his wooden peg with a steel try-square. ‘We earn them with square joints and sound oak. Every silver coin we put in this box represents an honest day of keeping water out of someone’s kitchen. That’s how Hal Rook built this city, and that’s how we’re going to save it.’
