The work of chaining fifty freight wagons hub-to-hub across the northern throat of Weaver’s Square was finished without a single shout being raised. Working men who spend twelve hours a day moving timber balks, wet hides, and barrels of animal fat have no need for military bugles or wild orders. They understand leverage. They understand friction. And above all, they understand the dead, unbending weight of seasoned ash wood and iron.
Tomas Reed stood by the rear axle of a three-ton stone heavy cart, his cart driver boots braced against the gutter stones. He grasped the heavy iron turnbuckle with his right hand, his fingers scarred from years of handling hemp thick ship rope and river chains. With his left hand, securely locked within its buckled calfskin brace, he steadied the tension bar, using the strength of his shoulder and torso to compensate for the thirty-five percent loss of grip in his fingers. The screw turned with a dry, grinding shriek of ungreased threads, pulling the two-inch mooring chain taut until the heavy spokes of the freight wheels groaned under the strain.
Beside him, two young wagon drivers from the South Wharves watched in silence as the iron link locked tight against the oak axle-tree.
