At two in the afternoon, Pella Rook and Varo Nenn conducted a public wage settlement on the timber mounting block outside the Fish Street weaving sheds. On an open slate board visible to all the workers, Nenn wrote down the payments in clear, bold chalk.
Every loom apprentice, every bobbin-winder, and every seamstress received their wages in hard silver and copper before the first completed sleeve left the frame stands. Six silver coins and twenty-four copper bits were paid out from the community subscriptions and the council emergency grant.
Sister Merrow stood beside the coin box, ensuring that not a single copper was drawn from the locked three-silver coin emergency injury locked deposit resting in the washroom. The margin remained sacred and inviolate.
‘Look at that tally board, Master Brant,’ an elderly loom-tender remarked, biting his silver bit to test the alloy. ‘In forty years of weaving sails for the royal navy, I never saw a builder pay for cloth before the ships left the boat ramp. The College gives you a paper voucher and tells you to collect from the exchequer in six months. Hal Rook’s daughter pays cash on the mounting block before the thread is cold.’
The effect on production was electric. The eighteen young apprentices returned to their looms with renewed vigor, the flying shuttles clattering through the reed warp at thirty-five percent above normal speed, determined to finish every yard before the sunset bell.
