At the northern bench of the staging shed, Jo Saye and Dima, the senior mistress of the Lowbank Weavers’ Guild, were conducting the final load-bearing audit of the textile spreading sleeve that bridged the granite gap between the bypass water chute and the town under-road drain. On the table lay the full-scale parchment pattern, pinned down at the four corners by iron weights, showing the double-slanted warp layout that Jo had drafted during her first crossing two weeks earlier.
Dima Fen ran his broad, calloused thumb over the woven sample. He felt the dense, oily texture of the treated fabric. Her apron smelled of boiled madder root and sheep fat. Meanwhile, her sleeves were stained with indigo dye. ‘The reed hoops didn’t splinter, Jo,’ Dima Fen said, his voice filled with deep skilled pride. ‘When the flood crest hit forty thousand gallons at eight bells, the collar swelled like a baker’s loaf, but the seams didn’t cry a thimble of water. Hal Rook’s apprentices thought canvas was too soft for river pressure. They wanted to cast an iron ball-joint that would have cost forty silver coins and rusted solid in six months.’
‘Iron is too stiff for ground that moves, Dima,’ Jo replied, unrolling her brass-riveted wooden measuring tape across the drawing. ‘When an embankment settles under flood weight, an iron pipe shears at the pipe rim. But a double-ply linen sleeve with spiral reed ribs can flex two inches in any direction without pinching the bore. It gives the…
