The three country judges who arrived at the Diverter Pavilion on the morning of the fourth day didn’t arrive with court guards or cavalry.
They arrived in three mud-spattered post-chaises, their horses blown from galloping eighty miles along the river turnpikes, their portfolios crammed with emergency escape proclamations that had proved entirely unnecessary.
First to step into the pavilion was Magistrate Vane-Smith of Oakhaven, a tall, gaunt patrician with silver hair. Second was Master Alderman Cross of Low-Fens, round-faced and wearing a wool merchant’s cloak. Third was Warden Karr of West-Reach. That blunt former miner smelled of damp flannel and coal smoke.
They entered the Great Hall expecting to find a disaster scene. Collapsed stonework, dead engineers, and the total breach of the Inland Sea.
Instead, they found the great oak hall clean, quiet, and smelling of beeswax and fresh pine shavings. Sitting at the long cedar table, drinking weak tea from a clay mug, was Tomas Reed, wearing his gray cart driver’s coat and wool waistcoat. Beside him sat Hester Reed, her ledger books stacked in neat, spotless towers of calfskin and thick parchment.
Through the great arched windows overlooking the gorge, the three judges could see the Grand Diverter standing silent and unbending. The bypass channel was roaring with eighty-five thousand cubic feet of clean water per second, venting safely into the uninhabited western badlands. Meanwhile, the pool level was thirty feet below the low roof wall coping.
