Cling-clack.
The salvaged bronze hand-bell did not have the deep, parish-waking boom of the iron market bell down in Mere, nor the solemn subterranean chime of a cathedral sanctus. It had the crisp, brassy, no-nonsense ring of an officer’s mess bell calling the sergeants to boiled beef—followed half a breath later by the solid wooden clunk of three overhead pawl-hooks dropping into the notches of the sand-hoppers and locking the padded oak sweep-bars tight against the rafters.
Tessa Dene let go of the madder-red pull-cord, stepped down from her wooden stool, and wiped a fleck of brick dust from her cheek with the back of her wrist.
“Try the fourth stone, Sella,” Tessa said.
Sella Rusk walked out onto the staggered diamond of numbered flagstones and brought her booted heel down hard on the corner of Stone IV, right over the ash balance-lever. Beneath the slab, the wooden trip-peg clicked against an empty slot. Up in the tie-beams, neither the middle sand-spout nor the canvas-wrapped oak bar budged a hair’s breadth.
“Dead fast,” Sella said, looking up at the notched wooden safety bar Tessa had linked to the bell-crank with a length of braided copper wire. “One pull drops the master pawl across all three hoppers and takes the tension off the drop-ropes at the same instant. How long to reset?”
