The Public Inn at Low Docks—known to rivermen as The Spliced Hawser—was a three-story timber tavern built over the muddy wooden support posts of the old canal basin. He smelled of stale ale, fried sprats, pipe smoke, and the damp wool of fifty clerks drying their coats before a roaring peat fireplace. It had become the working headquarters of the National Custody Audit in the capital, guarded day and night by Sile Rook’s independent watchmen and forty Karst miners armed with hard dark metal sledges.
In the private upper parlor, lit by animal fat dips stuck in empty wine bottles, the long oak table was buried beneath three feet of checked thick parchment rolls, counting frame frames, brass ruling guides, and balance sheets. Tomas Reed sat at the head of the table, his sleeves rolled up, his left forearm resting on a clean linen towel as Apprentice Olla gently massaged his tight tendon scar with warm bitter pine-resin oil.
“The gristle is hard tonight, Tomas,” Olla murmured, her thumbs working the stiff knot of scar tissue where the blade had torn the muscle tissue. “You’ve been holding the ruler for fourteen hours without putting it down. If you don’t rest the hand before tomorrow’s session, you won’t be able to hold the master seal.”
