The parish tithing books of St. Jude’s Ward from the winter of Anno 270 had survived the great fire only because Scribe Cullen had wrapped them in oiled canvas and underwater them in the rainwater water tank beneath the vestry floor. Now, thirty-two years later, the heavy thick parchment leaves were cockled and warped by water damage. Their margins stained with was pale brown tide-marks that looked like topographic contour lines. But beneath Scribe Olla’s gentle application of alcohol-dampened blotting pads, the iron-gall entries of three ages of working families emerged with uncorrupted clarity.
Tomas Reed sat at the second intake table, his dark-lantern propped upon two dry oak thin wedges. His pocket brass rule was held in his sound right hand. His left wrist brace was buckled snug, the stiff calfskin providing solid, unbending support to his scarred forearm as his fingers held each fragile baptismal slip flat against the table. In his mind, the working discipline of Succession Trace was active, linking the names inscribed in the water-damaged registers to the living men and women who stood waiting in the churchyard.
“Claim Number Four Hundred and Twelve,” Hester Quill announced, adjusting her reading glasses as she examined an ancient, smoke-blackened copper servant contract plate. “Caleb Thorne, journeyman blacksmith. Great-grandson of Master Hal Brand’s third apprentice, William Brand, who died defending the forge bellows during the Great Fire.”
