In the drafty timber shed behind the wheelwright’s shop, the air was soaked with the rich, nutty smell of boiling linseed oil and the sharp pine-scented bite of Stockholm pine pitch. Two copper cooking pots simmered over a low charcoal fire bowl, their dark amber liquid giving off thin, sweet-smelling coils of vapor that hung in the chilly gloom.
Eren Tal sat on an overturned nail keg near the fire bowl, his thick wool trousers dusted with yellow pine sawdust. Between his knees he held a heavy wooden fid. A narrowed cone-shaped tool of polished ash used for opening the tight strands of heavy marine cordage. In his leather-gloved hands, he gripped the bitter end of a two-inch braided hemp haul-rope, working with practiced, rhythmic smooth speed to splice a forged iron thimble into the eye.
Beside his boots sat a cracked clay pot plate holding the leftovers of his evening ration. Two dense crusts of Sister Merrow’s dark sourdough rye bread, smeared thickly with cold sheep fat and coarse gray sea salt.
“Keep the oil at a simmer, Bran,” Eren instructed without lifting his eyes from the splice. He tucked the fourth strand beneath the standing part with a sharp, squeaking twist of the ash fid. “If the linseed boils over into the charcoal, the whole shed goes up in yellow smoke. We lose three hundred deep-water lengths of the only good hemp left between here and the High Bridge.”
