Before a single boot stepped into the timber cradle, Jo Saye climbed down the iron service ladder to the upkeep ledge, her tailor’s tape-measure looped around her neck. Her pocket shears were tucked into her belt. She didn’t take Eren’s word for the strength of the rigging. She knelt in the slush and personally inspected every inch of the four mid-air slings that would carry the cradle across the forty-foot deep pit.
The straps were three inches wide, woven from four-ply marine hemp and heavy with layers of heavy saddle-leather at the friction points. Jo ran her gloved thumbs along the stitching, checking the thickness of the box-and-cross pattern she had taught Dima to sew. “Twelve stitches to the inch,” Jo murmured with clean, steady care, testing the bite of each knot with the point of her awl. “Good flax, waxed clean, no fraying on the edges.”
She unclipped the four forged bronze snaphooks that attached the slings to the overhead guide thick ship rope. She tested their spring-loaded keepers with three sharp snaps. “The webbing is approved, Eren,” Jo announced. He pulled a lead pencil from her beret and signing her initials—J.S. · SWL 2,400 lbs—onto the linen tag sewn into the master bridle. “You can put two men and an anvil into that sled. The ropes will hold.” Eren touched his cap with solemn respect. When Yorkshire tailoring approved a harness, you trusted it with your life.
