Dawn at the South Quay didn’t bring sunlight, only a pale thinning of the river fog that smelled of coal tar, dead bullrushes, and the salt water of low tide. Fifty pairs of clerks stood in two facing ranks along the timber wharf, their boot soles crunching on the wet oyster shells scattered over the gravel. On the left stood the fifty porters, their broad shoulders stooped under the habit of heavy cart hauling, their palms lined with calluses thick as shoe leather. On the right stood the fifty junior scribes and apprentices from the Independent School. Their woolen cloaks pulled was tight against the chill. Their satchels were held across their chests like breastplates.
Tomas Reed walked between the two ranks, his boots making a hollow, rhythmic thud against the wharf decking. Beside him walked Captain Sile Rook, his scarred jaw set like a granite wedge, his left hand resting on the iron ring of his master key-chain. Behind Sile, two watchmen carried an unpainted ash-wood bench and an iron-strapped cargo crate. He set them down on the salt-bleached planks.
“Look across from you,” Tomas said. His voice was level, carrying beneath the creak of the moored barges and the cry of river gulls. “You don’t know each other yet. Some of you porters think these scribes are soft-handed children who have never lifted anything heavier than a goose quill. Some of you scribes think these haulers are illiterate muscle who can’t tell a deed of trust from a…
