The eighth hour of the morning had barely struck from the cathedral tower. Just then, the first iron alarm bell began to toll from the steeple of Saint Jude in the Tanners’ Row. A wild, irregular clanging that signaled an armed breach of the parish bounds.
Three seconds later, the bell of Saint Martin in Weaver’s Square answered, its deep bronze voice joined by the high, rapid chime of the chapel of Saint Anne at the timber wharves. Within two minutes, all twelve parish belfries of the Lower Wards were ringing in a roaring, ear-splitting chorus of alarm that shook the soot from the chimneys of Printer’s Alley.
Nessa Vale dropped her sound horn, her face dead white as she pressed her forehead against the casement glass.
“They’re here,” Nessa shouted over the roar of the bells. “A full company of heavy infantry! Forty men in black plate, carrying poleaxes, axe-spears, and iron-banded timber rams! They’ve sealed the north entrance of the alley with iron crowd-hurdles, and Captain Branoc is marching down the lane with torches!”
Inside the pressroom, the rhythmic clatter of the two screw presses didn’t stop. Master Kael was peeling the four hundred and twentieth broadsheet from the bed, stacking it onto the drying bench with steady, blackened hands, while apprentice Olla tied bundles of fifty sheets with split-willow cords.
