Sosna Brell’s workshop grew out of the side of a millrace.
Three narrow floors stood above the water, each carried on stone piers and old timber beams. The wheel turned slowly beneath the lowest room. On the middle floor, bright threads crossed a row of looms. The upper windows opened toward beds of cultivated rill-reed, their thin leaves shining silver where the wind bent them over the water.
Iven reached it with the others on the morning of day 1276. The four high-road stages, the ambush delay and the animals’ necessary rest were all in the carrier book. They had not taken the old quote and returned to Ember Wash in the time it required merely to reach its maker.
Sosna read the merchant’s letter, the required working section and the dated quote. Then she showed them her current stock.
“Eight rolls ready. Four committed. Two waiting for their final heat test. Two I can sell today.”
“We need four,” Tavin said.
“Then two today is not four.”
She said it without pleasure. A small maker could not become an unlimited alternative merely because a larger buyer’s conditions had annoyed the people at her door.
