Seventy feet above the suspended land-mappers, upon the narrow, ice-slicked cathead platform of the high belfry, two men moved through the freezing mist with the silent, practiced smooth speed of executioners.
They wore the heavy wool rigger smocks and tarred oilskin caps of harbor draymen. But beneath their smocks they carried short, serrated curved rigging knives designed for cutting heavy naval hawsers under tension. Their faces were obscured by black wool mufflers pulled high over their noses.
These were not common dock cutthroats hired from the riverside gin shops. They moved with the balanced, sure-footed agility of men who had spent years working on high yardarms and shipyard work frames. In their leather belt pouches they carried lead-weighted saps, forged steel pry-bars, and small glass vials of fuming strong etching acid. The classic tool of guild arsonists who dissolved copper rivets and bronze pins without leaving flame marks.
They had entered the belfry through the high window row passage, picking the ancient iron warded lock on the north spiral stairs with hardened steel tension picks. Meanwhile, the morning watch bells were ringing in the lower cathedral. They knew the layout of the timber belfry intimately. They knew which floorboards creaked under boot leather. They knew the exact anchor points where the land-mapper’s outrigger catheads were bolted to the low roof wall.
