The afternoon fog rolled off the Black Sluice canal in greasy, yellowish sheets. He smelled of stale river mud, rotting cabbage stalks, and the skin-burning sting of boiling soap. In the cobblestone courtyard of the Reed family washhouse, the great copper laundry kettles were sending up pluming towers of white vapor that condensed on the soot-darkened brick walls.
Tomas Reed stood by the wood-chopping block, splitting seasoned ash logs for the fire with his right hand, keeping his bandaged left arm tucked securely against his leather apron. Beside him, his father, Emmet Reed, was shaving the rough edges from a pine washboard with a small thumb-plane, his carved willow crutch propped against the water-butt.
The sudden clatter of heavy, iron-shod boots on the alley cobblestones broke the rhythmic thud of the maul.
Six men turned the corner into the yard, moving with the swaggering, coordinated arrogance of skilled foundry guards. They wore heavy sleeveless jerkins of boiled leather greased with machine animal fat, their knuckles wrapped in leaded hemp binding. Each carried a three-foot heavy club turned from seasoned heart-oak.
At their head walked Vance Kegg.
Kegg was a man of forty, with shoulders like an ox and a face scarred by flying melted rock waste from the puddling furnaces. His nose had been broken flat across his cheekbones. His small, piggish eyes were red-rimmed from decades of sulfur smoke. In his right hand, he swung a sixteen-inch cast-iron valve wrench with casual, practiced malice.
