The morning bell in the camp was not made of bronze. It was an iron plowshare hung from an ash tripod by a frayed hemp cord, struck three times with a stone mallet to announce the opening of the communal well.
Tomas was awake before the iron rang. He sat on a low three-legged cobbler’s stool outside the marquee, working neat’s-foot oil into his cart driver boots with a rag of coarse canvas. The bitter-salt dust had already leached the moisture from the leather. That left the vamp stiff and gray. If he didn’t oil the welts every dawn, the stitching would rot and split across the ball of the foot before the week was out.
Nessa Vale emerged from the tent flap. She carried her brass-fitted level and a land-mapper’s brass sounding reel. Her short hair was tied back with a strip of cured eel-skin. Her eyes were narrowed against the blinding white glare that bounced off the salt flats the moment the sun cleared the eastern hills.
“They’re queuing at the north trench,” Nessa said, gesturing with her brass horn. “Eighty people already. Mostly women and half-grown boys carrying unpitched cedar tubs. The line isn’t moving.”
Tomas wiped his hands on his canvas apron, took his lead-lined ledger case and three clean glass sampling vials from his pack, and stood up. Sile Rook fell in behind them without a word, his heavy tall body-shield slung across his back, his right hand resting easily on the ash shaft of…
