Ten months after the venting of the subterranean shaft, when the willow trees along the banks of the Harth River were misted with the pale yellow-green buds of a new spring, Jon Hale walked out across the middle span of the rebuilt stone river bridge at the ninth bell of the morning.
During the eleven loops of the siege, this bridge had been a narrow, blood-soaked throat of grey stone—choked with wagon barricades, scarred by sapper petards, and swept by crossbow fire from both banks. Today, under the joint engineering work of Alden Bram’s masons and Captain Iven’s three hundred former Host soldiers, the three semi-circular limestone arches had been widened by four feet on either side with cantilevered granite footways, so that two hay-wagons could pass abreast in the central roadway while townsfolk walked dry-shod along the parapets above the foam.
Jon crossed to the western bank and turned up the swept flagstone path to the Shrine of St. Jude.
The whitewashed stone vestry beside the church nave—where sixty children and elderly townsfolk had huddled around tallow lamps while the trebuchets burned on the ridge—had been fitted with two tall, iron-framed glass display cases and a slate-roofed fireproof vault built by the parish guild council. Above the oak door, a carved limestone lintel bore the words:
