At half past eight on the twenty-fifth night, while Foreman Eren Tal and Dima Fen were returning from locking the four offering relief sleeves inside the Turning Basin staging shed, Senior Municipal Engineer Korr Var arrived at the washroom door in a dripping oilskin coat. In his left hand he carried a brass-cased aneroid barometer from the Guildhall star tower. In his right he held three wet telegraph-bell tally slips brought down by pony relay from the mountain watch-stations at High Tor Pass and Granite Weir.
Sister Merrow took Korr’s soaked cloak by the hearth and handed him a tin mug of scalding mint tea. Meanwhile, Pella Rook, Examiner Corvin Hest, and thirteen-year-old Tavi cleared the end of the pine table.
“Read the barometer glass first, Pella,” Korr Var said, his compact, weather-beaten face grave beneath the yellow lantern light as he set the round brass instrument on the wood.
Pella leaned over the bevelled glass dial. There, the blued steel pointer had fallen far to the left of the brass reference needle set at dawn. “Twenty-eight point four inches of liquid silver, Master Var. That’s a drop of eight-tenths of an inch since noon.”
“And the wind in the upper High Tor gorge shifted from north-northeast to dead southwest at four bells this afternoon,” Korr Var said, laying the three wet tally slips side by side on the blotter. “Instead of the dry autumn freeze Master Sorell’s seasonal tables predicted for the last week of the month, a warm…
