The private marina of Lake Calm was situated three miles west of Crown-Reach. There, the muddy river swelled into a broad, placid lagoon surrounded by weeping willows and the white marble pavilions of the high nobility. At nine o’clock on Sunday morning, the lake was veiled in a soft autumn mist, its stillness broken only by the calling of water-rails and the gentle lap of ripples against varnished cedar mooring wooden support posts. While the bells of the capital tolled for morning mass, a column of two hundred men in frieze coats and cart driver boots marched down the gravel carriage road, led by Tomas Reed and Hester Quill.
Tomas walked with the steady, rhythmic stride of a carrier carrying a light pack, his ash-wood pack frame resting against his shoulders. His left wrist brace was drawn tight, the iron buckle pressing firmly into his scarred forearm to guard the injured tendon against sudden torque. Beside him strode Sile Rook, wearing his dark wool watchman’s coat, carrying his tall oak body-shield slung across his back and his iron-wood hooked pruning blade resting on his right shoulder like a woodman’s axe. Behind them marched sixty master sailmakers, forty canal boatwrights. A hundred river draymen, each man carrying his trade tools—caulking irons, heavy hemp towing lines, and iron pinch-bars.
