The High Injunction Chamber of the King’s Bench was a circular room of dark walnut wainscoting and leaded glass windows overlooking the river. In the center sat the heavy oak court bench, beneath which sat Chief Justice Lord Maren, a severe, hawk-nosed jurist of seventy years whose piercing grey eyes missed nothing.
On the right table stood Guildmaster Horace Vane and three senior attorneys from the High Engineers’ Guild, their silk robes rustling nervously as they shuffled stacks of stone-built treatises.
On the left table stood Tomas Reed, Nessa Vale, Sile Rook, and Hester Quill. Between them lay the physical proof: the Ames dial shifted weight gauge, the crushed willow treenails, the cut naval thick ship rope. The approved math folios signed by the Last Claim.
Lord Maren leaned forward, his glasses perched on his nose. He looked directly at the dial gauge resting on the green baize cloth.
“Master Surveyor Vale,” Lord Maren said, his dry voice slicing through the chamber. “Explain this dial reading.”
Nessa stepped to the bench, her voice calm, clear, and ringing with exact total certainty. “At four hundred feet, My Lord, the western face of the Great Sky-Spire has out-of-joint fourteen point three two inches westward. It’s not static bending. Under a forty-knot wind, the bed joint slips one point eight tiny fractions of an inch on every gust cycle. The willow treenails used in place of forged iron tie-rods have failed fully. The outer marble facing is bearing eighteen hundred and forty pounds…
