That night, there were no triumphal arches erected in the streets of Crown-Reach, no heralds blowing silver trumpets from palace balconies, and no fireworks bursting over the river. The Great Inquest had finished not with high-born pageantry, but with the quiet, careful dispersal of working people returning to their homes, their shops, and their carts.
Down along the South Wharves. There, the oily black water of the tidal canal slapped rhythmically against the green-slimed granite inner walls, stood The Drayman’s Rest. The two-story tavern was built from salvaged ship timbers sixty winters ago, its heavy oak ceiling beams curved like the ribs of an inverted caravel. It smelled of seasoned beech smoke, roasting mutton, dark malt, and dried pennyroyal hanging in bunches from the rafters. A soft autumn rain tapped gently against the thick, diamond-paned leaded windows, blurring the yellow reflections of the harbor lanterns outside.
The tavern had belonged to working draymen, coal heavers, and river pilots for three ages. Behind the taproom counter stood Old Barnaby, an eighty-year-old former mountain wagon driver who had lost three toes to frostbite on the High Pass under King Alden the Second. Barnaby had personally carried the heavy pewter service to the corner booth. He refused any coin from Tomas Reed. “You broke the toll-chains on the North Gate this morning, Master Reed,” the old wagon driver had muttered. He wiped his apron with calloused hands. “My boys hauled timber through those gates for twenty winters and paid half their wages to…
