The great oak table in the Ferry Kitchen was covered with receipts, weight-tickets, timber invoices, and tax check rolls as Auditor Varo Nenn and merchant town elder Master Vane conducted the formal financial reconciliation of the afternoon drill. Outside, the twilight was deepening into cold purple darkness. The scent of woodsmoke mingled with the cool silt stench rising from the harbor flats.
Beside the hearth, Sister Merrow was stirring a copper cooking pot of thick barley broth. Meanwhile, Eren Tal and Jo Saye rested on a pine settle, their work aprons dusted with wood shavings and flax fibers. On the table, Pella Rook’s field ledger lay open, its crisp pages filled with neat columns of numbers written in permanent dark oak-ink.
‘Here is the complete financial accounting, Master Vane,’ Pella said. She tapped the ledger with the brass tip of Hal Rook’s measuring tongs. ‘The total town waste for today’s escape drill was fourteen silver coins and six copper bits. That covers three hours of downtime wages for eighty tradespeople, two cartloads of hemlock timber offcuts, and fifty pounds of sourdough crusts and boiled tea.’
Master Vane, wrapped in his heavy beaver-fur cloak, leaned over the ledger, adjusting his glasses. ‘Fourteen silver coins is a substantial sum from the emergency purse, Candidate Rook. Several aldermen in the northern ward argued this morning that spending fourteen silver coins to practice running away from imaginary water is a frivolous waste of public funds.’
