The morning fog over the river had thickened into a cold gray wool when Jon Hale walked out of the River Lantern yard and climbed the gentle rise of the cobbled street toward the Old Bridge Shrine of St. Jude. High in the timber belfry above the stone chapel, sixty-six-year-old sexton Roric Flann was greasing the bronze bell-yoke before the seventh hour, the faint smell of mutton tallow and wet slate drifting down onto the pavement where the noon bell had not yet cracked in this morning’s life.
Jon bypassed the main arched doors of the sanctuary, where early market women were lighting penny candles before the river-saint’s niche, and turned down the narrow flagged passage along the north buttress to the stone vestry. He rapped three times on the iron-studded oak door—two quick knocks and a pause, the recognition signal Sister Oda and Lady Signe Lorr had agreed upon five lives back so they would know when the innkeeper came up from the cellar with a morning truth.
Inside, the bolt slid back immediately. Sister Oda pulled the heavy door inward, her gaunt frame draped in the grey wool habit of St. Jude, her brass medicinal keys and bone surgical probe hanging motionless at her cincture so they would not chime in the hallway.
