The single candle-mark recess expired with the dry clatter of the clerk’s lead weight striking the bronze basin at the center of the High Chamber. The afternoon sun had moved past the upper high window row windows. He cast long, sharp shadows across the marble tiers where the guild aldermen sat in their leather jerkins. The smell of cold pipe smoke, wet wool, and floor-dust hung thick in the air. But the tension that had gathered before the midday chime had not faded away. It had settled into the stone flags like cold river damp.
Councilor Elna Vesk adjusted the iron-framed reading glasses on her nose, took up her horn metal pen. Then she turned to the second page of the civil docket. Beside her, Clerk Varo Nenn was still arranging stacks of town water-tax rolls, his fingers stained black with dark oak-ink. Below the bench, Davin Sorell remained in the respondent’s dock, his gray wool robe pulled tight across his chest. He stared at the empty space between the clerk’s table and the stone railing.
“The council resumes the formal hearing into the Lathmere Watershed Crisis under the Twelfth Civic City law,” Councilor Vesk said, her voice clear, dry, and unrushed. “We have heard the academy settling of Judge Hest, the technical findings of Senior Engineer Korr regarding the snapped collar, and Candidate Rook’s submission of Exhibit B-14. We now proceed to the testimony of the residents of the Lowbank drainage ward. Call Mira Os.”
