By the second bell after midday, the inside of the Old Ferry Storehouse sounded like a dry dock in full refit. The rhythmic, two-man rasp of a pit-saw biting through cured ash timber echoed against the high cedar rafters, with the sharp, ringing blows of Eren Tal’s four-pound framing mallet driving seasoned locust pins through wood slot joints. The air, which for five years had smelled of stale salt-scale and dried herring oil, was suddenly rich with the sharp, sweet fragrance of freshly planed white pine, damp lime wash, and boiled linseed oil.
Pella Rook stood in the center of the vast, open bay. Her hair was tied back in a red linen kerchief, a two-foot wooden ruler tucked into the bib of her canvas apron. Around her, twelve local artisans—carpenters from the basin yard, two apprentice coopers, and four weavers led by Dima Fen—were transforming the cavernous barn into a working building shop.
In the southwest corner, near the riverward high window row windows where the natural northern light was clear and shadowless, Eren had already laid the foundation for the main workbenches. Four massive three-inch-thick slabs of seasoned ash timber, planed glass-smooth and rub-burnished with beeswax and animal fat, rested upon heavy six-by-six oak frame stands securely bolted to the floor timbers with half-inch iron coach bolts.
