The Chapel of the Reeds was built from the ribs of broken river barges.
Its walls were curved planks of heart-oak, tarred against the fen damp and held together by forged iron spikes rusted to brown scale. The floor sat six feet above the stale water on twelve willow wooden support posts wrapped in hemp rope and greased with animal fat to keep water-beetles from burrowing into the wood.
Inside, the air smelled of marsh mint, boiled vinegar, and sweat.
Around the hall, dozens of people lay on straw pallets over the bare planks. An old woman with swollen knuckles boiled willow bark in an iron pot over a slate hearth. Across the room, two men in torn flax shirts spliced a frayed mooring line with the unrushed rhythm of dock laborers who had run out of ships.
At the far end of the chapel, seated at a low hatch-cover table, sat Elder Maren.
She was nearly eighty winters old, her skin like dried walnut meat, her white hair braided into a crown pinned with bone bodkins. Over her shoulders hung a reed shawl lined with sheepskin. Her eyes were milky at the edges, but when she turned them toward Tomas, they were sharp as an awl.
