The sign above the low timber portal swung on rusted iron eyes, groaning with every gust of river wind that funneled down the alley: C. Vane & Sons, Letterpress & Broad-Sheet Printers (Est. 204).
The building was four stories of warped oak framing and crumbling yellow brick, pinched tight between an animal fat-chandler’s melting shed and an unpaved heavy cart-dock where barrels of lampblack were unloaded from canal barges. The ground floor smelled overpowering and sharp. Cold linseed oil, bitter walnut ink, and the sour vinegar wash used to scour dried lead type.
Tomas hauled on the brake lever and swung down from the box. His cart driver boots sank half an inch into the greasy coal slurry that coated the cobblestones. He walked to the team’s heads, loosening the nosebands so the horses could blow, their breath steaming white in the raw capital drizzle.
From the dark doorway of the print shop stepped a man wiping black grease from his forearms with a scrap of coarse sacking. He was in his late fifties, his shoulders permanently hunched from thirty years of leaning over composing sticks. His gray hair was tied back with a leather thong. Chipped steel-rimmed glasses sat crooked on his nose, one lens held in place by a thread of copper binding wire.
