The lifting bridle for Petal Number One consisted of four heavy hard steel wire grommets, two inches in width, each hand-spliced by naval riggers with six tucks against the lay. The grommets were threaded through the cast bronze relief arches at the base of the huge fleur-de-lis and shackled to a twenty-ton forged steel spreader beam suspended beneath the sheer-legs.
Before giving the order to lift, Master Rigger Kael and Tomas step by step checked the fleet angle of the running wire. The three-quarter-inch hard steel wire rope passed through a series of balanced lead-blocks greased with sheep fat. It dropped vertically through the cathedral’s internal service shaft to ensure that the level pull of the capstans five hundred feet below wouldn’t impart any lateral vector to the belfry low roof wall.
From the belfry low roof wall, Master Rigger Kael raised his green semaphore flag. He held it stiff against the biting northwest wind. Five hundred and fifty feet below in Sovereign Square, two columns of dense white steam billowed into the cold gray sky as the naval firemen stoked the twin boilers of the thirty-horsepower steam capstans. Down in the streets, twelve hundred soldiers of the Royal Guard held back a crowd of fifteen thousand citizens who had gathered behind heavy timber barricades to witness the uncrowning of the monument.
