The Crown-Reach Customs House stood over the Great Water-Gate like a granite castle wall, its soot-blackened cut stone stained with hundreds of years of coal smoke and high-tide spray. Inside, the Great Hall of Registry smelled of sour ink, sealing wax, damp calfskin. The tobacco smoke of two hundred anxious merchant supercargoes awaiting clearance stamps.
Tomas Reed and Hester Quill climbed the forty worn granite steps from the quayside. Tomas carried the cedar chest of Circuit dockets under his sound left arm, his right hand hooked into the strap of his pack frame. On stairs slick with drizzle and coal dust, his right forearm gave a throbbing tug beneath the calfskin brace every ten steps. Cold dampness turned the scar tissue into a rigid cord. He bent his thumb inside the cuff to keep breath flow moving over the forearm bone.
Beside him, Hester mounted the steps at a measured pace, her wool skirts gathered in one ink-stained hand and her glasses tucked inside her black shawl. Forty years of climbing high court archive stairs had given her the lungs of a mountain mule.
“Customs House clerks aren’t soldiers, Tomas,” Hester said quietly beneath the clatter of cart wheels on the quay. “They fight with stamps, docket delays, and fees for supplemental protests. Treat them as hostile copyists. Never ask for a document not already recorded in their day-book, and never surrender custody of an original parchment.”
