The ash-wood pack frame had been re-lashed three times before the damp gray dawn cleared the chimneys of Low Bellwether.
Tomas Reed pulled the waxed linen cord taut through the third brass eyelet. He tested the friction with his right thumb. The cord gave a dull twang, stiff with animal fat and pine tar. His left wrist throbbed beneath its laced calfskin brace. A deep ache that worsened when river fog settled into the leather seams. He paused, resting his knuckles against the packing bench. Then he pressed his left thumb to each fingertip: index, middle, ring, little finger. The scar across his inner forearm pulled taut, white against the tanned skin. But the tendon responded. The grip was reduced by a third since the winter floods. But thirty pounds could be locked into the palm if the straps were notched to let his shoulder take the shock.
Across the workroom, Nessa Vale was cleaning the lenses of her brass level-transit. Her fingers were stained with lampblack and chalk dust, her movements clipped. Her aimed sound horn—cast in double-cone brass and burnished until the seam rivets gleamed—hung from her chest harness by a split-ring swivel. The wide bell was resting against her collarbone clear of her measuring chains.
