Jon Hale carried the oak tray down the length of the common room and set a freshly trimmed brass table lantern squarely in the center of the head board, three hand-spans from Special Provost Warden Brecht’s left elbow.
He adjusted the woven hemp wick with his brass snuffers until the yellow flame burned tall and shadowless across the scrubbed ash planks. If a man came into the River Lantern with five inches of poisoned Chancellery steel strapped inside his left cuff, he was going to eat his supper with two candle-power of rendered mutton tallow shining directly onto his wrists.
Around the perimeter of the taproom, the evening watch of the Harth Common Refuge sat quietly over their own mugs and trenchers, maintaining the lawful quorum of a corporate assembly without crowding the Provost’s chair. At the round table nearest the street window sat Master of Masons Marris Gault and Master Smith Garrick Holt, their heavy forearms resting on the board beside a pair of stoneware tankards. By the parlor door sat Mistress of Salt Bessa Karr and Master Weaver Joran Finch; at the corner bench beside the alms-box sat Sister Oda; and across from Brecht, four paces down the main trestle where she could observe every motion of the Warden’s hands while keeping the notary desk at her back, sat Travelling Magistrate Lady Signe Lorr. Up on the notary desk itself, resting beneath the light of a second brass lamp inside the Four-Cornerstone Boundary, lay the stitched-calfskin volume of…
