The iron railings outside the Outer Gatehouse of the High Parliament were cold enough to draw the heat straight through Tomas Reed’s wool gloves. Autumn rain had settled over Crown-Reach since the third hour before dawn, washing soot from the slate chimney caps down into the gutters, turning the limestone paving stones into a slick, greasy floor that sucked at the heels of cart driver boots.
Tomas stood by the western pillar with his ash-wood pack frame resting against the stone curb. His left forearm throbbed with the dull, persistent ache that always accompanied a sharp drop in air pressure. Beneath his tarred canvas coat and coarse wool tunic, the thick calfskin brace held his wrist rigid. That kept the scarred tendon sheath from stretching whenever his fingers curled into a fist. Thirty-five percent of his grip strength was gone, buried under the puckered white gristle left behind by a rusted blade in Low Bellwether years ago. But the three-inch iron buckle kept the hand functional for sixty-pound loads.
Every morning began with the same silent discipline. He would loosen the laces of the brace, expose the pale, shiny flesh of the inner forearm to the raw air, and work the fingers through fifty deliberate cycles. Thumb to index finger, pressing the meat of the pads together until the pulse beat against the bone. Thumb to middle finger, feeling the gristle cord pull taut near the elbow. Thumb to ring finger. There, the nerve endings still tingled with the numbness…
