The third sheet of Dutch rag paper sat between Auditor Nenn’s brass balance scale and a small assortment of tools Eren Tal had brought up from the basin shop. A ten-inch forged iron pipe wrench, a boxwood folding rule with brass hinges, a round-handled bronze cold chisel. An unmounted dial pressure gauge in a stamped tin case.
Pella picked up the brass balance pan. It slid the sliding poise weight along the notched beam until it clicked into the seven-two-pound detent. The brass balance weight hung steady and level in the air.
“Article Three,” Pella said, “is the tool limit. The Seven-Kilogram Standard. This is the clause that will confuse the scholars and infuriate the merchant houses. The scholars will ask why we don’t bring through huge foreign steam engines to pump the lower basin in ten minutes. The merchants will ask why we don’t use the arch to import high-value foreign made goods to avoid harbor tariffs.”
Eren picked up the iron pipe wrench, turning the knurled adjusting nut with his thumb. The smooth, oiled click of the hardened steel teeth sounded crisp in the quiet room.
Eren Tal reached down into his canvas tool bag. Then he pulled out Ada Morland’s spare brass sound pipe hub. She set it carefully in the brass balance pan of Nenn’s scale. The beam tipped downward with a soft, metal clink. ‘Four point eight pounds,’ Eren noted, reading the notched marks. ‘That leaves two point two pounds for her pipe rim wrenches…
