The roar from the amphitheater tiers rose like the sudden rush of floodwater through an open culvert.
Noll Vey kept his single stone palm pressed hard against the limestone witness rail. Through the cup-mark carved into his palm, he felt the vibration of twenty pairs of heavy work-clogs stamping on the stone benches, the angry murmurs of the Mere weavers, and the sharp, defensive rustle of Captain Arda Dorn’s wet wool cloak as she turned to face the assembly.
“Quiet on the benches!” Reeve Dena Holt shouted from the front row, rising to her feet and striking her gavel on the oak rail. “Let the envoy speak!”
“No, let Corin speak!” shouted a woman from the back row—the sister of one of the miners who had spent four days trapped in the wet drift beneath the south pit. “We didn’t come into this hole to watch the Crown forgive itself with our flour!”
On the fourth tier, Corin the woodcutter stood with his fists clenched, his broad shoulders shaking with righteous indignation.
“The guns were firing an hour ago, Noll!” Corin shouted down into the well. “They were dropping twelve-pound iron through the shingles above the children’s heads! The cooper’s shop is burned to the floorboards, and Tomas’s two cart-mules had their backs broken by flying slate! Now the Captain brings down a fine sheet of parchment saying that if we pay those same gunners six copper pence a day from our own customs house, they’ll be our brothers on…
