Ten seconds after Warden Brecht disappeared inside the courthouse portico across the square, Jon Hale slipped through the River Lantern’s side passage into the back lane behind the salt-sheds, where Tobin had pulled the four-wheel flour wagon tight against the loading stone.
Elin was already up on the flat bed of the wagon between two tiers of coarse rye-meal sacks, setting up a low, portable carpenter’s trestle table that Alden Bram had wedged between the side-boards so a person could sign parchment without the wind tearing the sheet. Alongside the trestle sat Notary Corve Penner of the Merchant Assize, his brass spectacles tied securely around his ears with black ribbon, a weighted lead inkwell held between his knees, and three sticks of red sealing wax warming over a small perforated tin charcoal brazier.
“We have three hours and forty minutes until the fourth bell,” Jon said, swinging himself up over the iron tail-chain of the wagon and laying the heavy, stitched-leather folio of the Bound Common Charter flat across the trestle board. “Brecht has already served notice that at four o’clock he will proclaim martial curfew from the market cross and requisition every unchartered commercial building and cellar in Harth as a provost post. Where do we stand on the bank roll, Master Penner?”
