The taproom of the River Lantern had filled with forty shareholders by the time the seventh bell tolled from the market tower. The air was thick with the steam of wet frieze coats, the resinous tang of pine torches mounted in iron wall brackets, and the sour vinegar smell of the cabbage stew bubbling in Elin’s copper caldron.
At the center of the common room, seated on the low ash bench before the hearth with a wool blanket draped over her bandaged shoulder, Iven remained motionless. Her dark, mud-stained boots were planted flat on the flagstones, her eyes fixed upon the flames, refusing to meet the hostile, suspicious stares of the craftsmen who stood three ranks deep around the tables.
Bessa Karr slammed her small pewter measuring mug down upon the bar counter with a sharp, ringing clang.
“She is an enemy surveyor, Jon Hale!” the mistress of the salt guild shouted, her horn-rimmed spectacles trembling on the bridge of her nose. “She admitted with her own tongue that she laid the sighting pins for the harpoon boats! She mapped the culvert where Marris Gault’s sawyers were burned! And now you bring her into the common room of our shelter, give her hot barley water, and ask us to let her walk our dike?”
