Night settled over the Deep Anchor Anchorage like a wet wool blanket, heavy with freezing sea fog and harbor coal smoke. Along the outer edge of the Royal Shipyards, animal fat lanterns flickered behind wire grates. He cast dull yellow circles upon greasy cobblestones. At the far end of the basin, Sea-court provosts moved with lantern-poles along Slipway One, their boots ringing against iron mooring rings.
Between Slipway Three and the green-slimed wooden support posts of Pier Four, darkness reigned.
Tomas Reed knelt upon the soaked timber caps of Pier Four on a square of tarred canvas. Freezing salt water dripped from the lower cross-braces into the black water twelve feet below. His right forearm burned with a grinding ache from wrist-brace to elbow. Five hours in the salt wind had tightened the scarred gristle over his forearm bone into an unbending knot. Every few minutes, he used his left thumb to knead the hard seam through the wet calfskin brace. That kept the tendon supple enough to handle the line.
Beside him, apprentice Olla held a dark lantern, its shutter cracked half an inch to cast a pencil of orange light across oiled drafting thick parchment pinned to a cedar board. Olla’s teeth chattered softly, her ink-horn capped tight against the sea spray.
