By noon on the second day of the storm, Sella Rusk had driven six iron pitons into the mortar joints between the western postern and the eastern entry sill and strung fifty feet of tarred hemp rope hip-high across the flagstones.
She had learned in her first three years with the March Survey that ten frightened villagers in a narrow stone passage were more dangerous than a cave-in. Give people an unmarked floor when a mule team is backing up on slick slate, and somebody will inevitably step behind a wheel hub with a basket of eggs and break an ankle. Give them a taut hemp line with white rag markers tied every two paces, and even a half-frozen drover will keep his shoulders inside his own lane without being shouted at twice.
“Left of the rope for iron runners and pack beasts!” Sella called out, bracing her gloved boot against the base of the third stanchion as she hauled a clove hitch tight. “Right of the rope for foot traffic and hand-barrows! Keep your axe-heads sheathed and your wet cloaks clear of the hearth table!”
Tomas came clattering through the west arch on his third trip since dawn, guiding his borrowed sled with a single flick of his bandaged left wrist. The big carter had rigged a canvas wind-screen across the front bolster of the sled, and his mules knew the warm stone corridor well enough now that they dropped from a straining hill-trot to a polite, flat-footed walk…
