Night returned to Canton Vane, but the communal tithe barn was not dark. It was blazing with the light of a dozen lanterns and shaking with the purposeful, focused labor of twenty men.
Tomas Reed and Nessa Vale had spread the stone-built height drawings of Pier Six across the broad threshing floor, weighing down the corners of the linen parchment with iron anvil-weights and granite spalls. Around the table stood Elder Bran, Master Miller Jos, and five master carpenters and timber-wagon drivers from the three valley cantons.
The air was electric with tension. It smelled of fresh sawdust, pine pitch, hot sheep fat, and the sharp, stone tang of wet chalk.
Nessa stood at the head of the drawing, her brass rule and sector-measuring tongs in hand, her fingers stained with black ink as she showed the load-bearing vector counts to the assembled craftsmen.
“Listen to the numbers,” Nessa said, her voice clear, confident, and commanding. “Pier Six weighs about three thousand two hundred tons, including the water in the upper channel. It’s currently leaning four point two inches downstream off the upright center-line. That four-inch bending generates a level overturning thrust of forty-two tons at the spring-line of the lower arch.”
