Before Sorell could counter with legal objections, Councilor Vesk gestured to the gallery. ‘The Senate will hear the testimony of the residents.’
Mira Os stepped down from the wooden benches, holding the hand of her seven-year-old son. She was a laundress from Fish Street, her hands red and chapped from soda ash, her gray wool shawl pinned with a bent brass needle. ‘My cellar filled with yellow water three days before the first rain fell in the city, Councilman,’ Mira said. Her voice shook slightly but clear as a bell. ‘Master Sorell’s clerks told us it was spring slow leak. They told us not to worry. Last night, that yellow water blew my kitchen floorboards through the ceiling. If Sister Merrow and the watermen hadn’t carried my children onto the high dock, we would have drowned in our sleep. Meanwhile, the College was singing prayers on the hill.’
Beside her stood Hesta, the veteran ferry watchwoman, her face weathered by thirty years of river winds. ‘I stood on the roof of St. Jude’s. Just then, the mill wheel broke,’ Hesta testified, her calloused thumb pointing toward Pella. ‘The official flood bell on the High Terrace never made a sound. It was Hal Rook’s bronze wire and Pella’s whistle that warned the boat ramp. If we had waited for Master Sorell to admit his machine had a leak, Miller Tom’s boys would be lying in cold clay today. We don’t want golden fountains, Councilman. We want gates that open when the…
