The rain had slackened to a thin, silver mist that hung over the Turning Basin like wet linen. It caught the pale morning light. Word of the face-off in the command tent had spread through the wharves like wildfire along a dry hemp rope. By the time Pella Rook stepped onto the raised stone platform beside the levee bell post, over fifty workers—watermen in tarred jackets, masons with lime-dusted trousers, wagon drivers, apprentice boys, and laundresses—had gathered in a dense, quiet semicircle.
The air was filled with the familiar Lowbank air. The cold, clean damp of wet stonework, the heavy silt stench rising from the drained water chute, and the faint, bitter tang of copper green rust on the bronze bell overhead. In the center of the crowd stood Bessa Marr and young Joril, their faces tense, unsure whether this assembly was to witness their vindication or their formal reprimand.
Beside Pella stood Master Galt. His heavy brass whistle was tucked into his belt. Eren Tal, resting his scarred hands on the handle of his ten-pound sledge. At the outer edge, Councilor Vesk’s three town observers stood on a granite mounting block, their leather notebooks open and their graphite pencils poised.
