The three weaving sheds on Fish Street were long, low-ceilinged stone barns filled with the ear-splitting, clattering roar of twenty-four wooden fly-shuttle looms, smelling of hot animal fat, boiled sizing, and wet reed fiber. Pella, Dima, and Sister Merrow walked down the central aisle between the rattling frames.
Master Brant and Mistress Kessa, both veteran guild weavers whose sons worked on the river barges, agreed to release their stock right away upon seeing Pella’s silver coins. ‘Take the two hundred and thirty yards, apprentice,’ Kessa said, wiping sweat from her face. ‘The royal navy can wait for their galley covers. If our cellars go underwater tonight, there won’t be any weavers left to throw a shuttle anyway.’
The obstacle was Master Orrin, whose shop produced the heaviest multi-ply herringbone weave. Orrin was sixty-five, timid, and scared of academy legal exam guards. ‘I have ninety yards of six-ply reed cloth stacked in my back loft, girl,’ Orrin stammered, wringing his ink-stained apron. ‘But the College of Summoners holds an exclusive delivery bond over my shop. If I sell so much as a fathom of that cloth to a secret backup, Master Sorell’s exam guards will seize my looms and forfeit my forty-crown bond before the sun sets.’
