The heavy oak street door of the River Lantern Inn thudded shut against the evening rain as Master Baker Dunstan Harl dropped the two-inch iron crossbar into its brackets. Along the north and west casements facing High Street, grain-weigher Tomas Miller and three burly river-barge polemen swung the interior oak storm-shutters closed and slid the iron bolts home, sealing the warm, rosemary-scented taproom into a hollow fortress of timber and stone.
In the center of the flagged aisle, Warden Tomas Brecht stood motionless beside his corner table, his black broadcloth coat buttoned to the chin and his narrow shoulders framed between the two converging groups. Four paces in front of him stood Sir Cael Ardent in his rain-darkened blue cloak and silver-chased breastplate; four paces behind him, blocking the scullery arch, stood Jon Hale, Alden Bram, and Lady Signe Lorr of the High Assize.
Nobody shouted. Across the room, the forty-six townsfolk who held shares in the Bound Common Charter stood along the trestle benches in absolute, suffocating stillness, watching as Jon Hale walked forward to the corner supper board.
One by one, with deliberate, measured weight, Jon set the two ten-pound brass demolition cylinders from his left arm down upon the scrubbed oak tabletop beside Brecht’s cold stoneware bowl of mutton broth. Alden Bram stepped up beside Jon and set the third clay-streaked brass fire-pot down in line with the other two—thirty pounds of Northpass military thermite resting bare and defused under the yellow glow of the hanging brass…
