The wind sweeping across the Lowbank wharves was turning south, driving a fine, cold drizzle that smelled of soot, wet stonework, and rotting river vegetation. Along the raised stone walkway of Fish Street, three junior foremen from the lower drainage stations were marching toward the basin levee, their heavy woolen coats spattered with brown river mud and their expressions sour with grievance.
Lead Foreman Brant of Station Four led the group. He waved an iron-headed measuring rod like a sergeant’s cane. He stormed into the open levee shelter where Pella, Jo Saye. Eren Tal were reviewing the bypass balance charts by the light of a charcoal fire bowl. The scent of boiled tea and fresh sourdough crust from Sister Merrow’s basket hung in the damp air.
‘Candidate Rook!’ Brant bellowed, stamping his wet boots on the gravel. ‘What in the name of the High Magistracy is happening at the eastern headwall? My crews have been standing by their capstans at Station Four for twenty minutes with cold water backing up into the overflow under-road drains! If you throttle the eastern water chute, the water has nowhere to go but my lower storage basins!’
Pella didn’t look up from her slate until she had finished drawing a clean reference line with her red grease pencil. She set her measuring tongs down on the pine table with deliberate, rhythmic composure. ‘Good morning, Foreman Brant. The eastern water chute was throttled. That was because the third-tier staging shifted two and a quarter inches…
