At a quarter past three in the morning, Sister Oda tied a square of clean oiled canvas over the top of the pitch-lined wooden bucket, lifted the iron bail in both hands, and paused beside the latched door of the bakehouse.
“I will bury the limb in the north corner of the St. Jude churchyard, behind the elderberry hedge where we laid the mason’s leg after the quarry slide,” the elderly priestess said quietly, keeping her voice pitched below the steady, shallow rasp of Cael Ardent’s breathing on the maple table. “And before I come back across the footbridge at daybreak, I will stop at the Guild Hall vestibule to check on the three wounded pikemen from the west palisade and sign the parish burial roll for Master Engineer Aldric.”
Jon Hale looked up from the stone sink in the corner of the bakehouse, where his forearms were plunged to the elbows in a copper basin of hot lye water and wood-ash soap.
“Did Corve Penner find Aldric’s family town in the Host muster book?” Jon asked softly, scrubbing the fine steel teeth of Garrick Holt’s ten-inch tenon saw with a stiff hog-bristle brush until every trace of marrow and crimson rust dissolved into the grey suds.
