At three in the morning, the crane lifted the six-ton gate back into the air above the intake water chute. The straightened bronze spindle had been greased with a thick compound of sheep fat and flake graphite. It shone like wet slate in the torchlight.
Eren and Kel Dorr guided the gate’s bronze shoes into the granite guide slots. With a smooth, whispering slide, the leaf dropped into the pit. It settled onto its stone doorstep with a hollow, muffled thud that displaced a foot of water. Pella mounted the overhead nut, engaged the thrust bearings. Then she tightened the four forged retaining bolts with a four-foot wrench.
‘Test the wheel, Tavi!’ Pella called out.
The twelve-year-old boy grabbed the spokes of the five-foot hand-wheel. Where four hours ago two grown men couldn’t move the spindle an inch, the boy was able to spin the wheel with his own hands. The heavy bronze shaft turned with a slow, silent, oily glide. It lifted the six-ton gate three inches with every ten rotations.
‘It’s moving, Pella!’ Tavi shouted, laughing with delight. ‘I can lift the whole river with one hand!’
‘Hold the leaf at six inches, Tavi,’ Pella instructed, checking the water flow. ‘We want a test stream, not a deluge. The gate works, Eren. The intake is approved.’ Tommas Vane banked the boiler fires on his crane, accepted his two silver coins with a respectful touch of his cap. Then it swung the derrick boom back to the wharf. The…
