At six o’clock in the morning, the first pale blue light of dawn was breaking over the river gorge when Councilor Vesk arrived at the foot of the Lowbank levee. She wore a heavy gray wool traveling cloak lined with squirrel fur. But her hem was already spattered with wet river mud. Her glasses were fogged with the damp river mist.
Behind her walked four aldermen of the Municipal Senate, their expressions pinched with fatigue and cold, with the Chief Town Land-mapper carrying a brass level and measuring chain. None of them had slept. The rumors of Sorell’s midnight arrest and the averted flood had thrown the High Terraces into utter turmoil.
Pella Rook and Eren Tal met the council delegation at the entrance of Fish Street. Pella’s boots were coated with gray water-setting slurry, her sleeves rolled high over her forearms, Hal Rook’s brass measuring tongs tucked securely into her apron belt. The morning air smelled sharply of wet stonework and powdery pipe lime flaking from the older terrace abutments, mingled with the familiar silt stench of disturbed harbor mud. She showed no signs of deference or dramatic humility. She stood on her street with the quiet, unshakable dignity of a worker who had done her job.
