The inventory of the brass Courtesy Arch went on with painful, deliberate slowness under the cold dawn light filtering through the back kitchen grates. Pella Rook knelt by the four cured ash sleepers bedded in dry lime mortar near the southern wall, Hal Rook’s brass measuring tongs in her hand, measuring the limit of every bronze bracket and recording the figures in dark oak-ink.
Behind her stood Captain Kray and two academy wardens, their iron truncheons hanging uselessly at their hips, their faces sweating in the warm draft of the kitchen hearth. Outside in the courtyard, the sound of heavy iron-shod boots on wet cobblestones was multiplying. Forty timber wagon drivers, lightermen, and coopers, led by Foreman Kray and Master Karst, had gathered in total, intimidating silence, their arms folded. Their grim faces were pressed against the windowpanes.
‘Component four,’ Pella called out, tapping the lower upright with the measuring tongs tip. ‘Cast glowing-bronze support post, thirty-six inches in height, two inches in width. Zero hairline fractures along the mounting pipe rim. Rune-tracks clean, free of compulsory gold leaf, showing three-inch safety gaps intact.’
Auditor Varo Nenn copied the description onto his thick parchment roll, blowing fine river sand across the ink with maddening, office care. ‘Witnessed by Varo Nenn, Town Clerk. Captain Kray, sign line four.’
