Chapter 18: Live Load

The held doors stood open. Two bricks from the drain wedged them back, and the first light came flat and grey across the outer hall and showed every face in it. The residents had voted in the night, by raised hands and by feet on stone: open for the test, shut after. Ilan stood in the draught with his left arm strapped across his chest and a fresh cloth round his scalp. Tamsin Reed waited at the first gauge rod with her case under her arm. Beside her the cooper, broad as one of his own casks, watched the arch, and the Lowmarket landlady stood in her good shawl with her arms folded over it. Sera had set the rods at the haunches and the crown, each with a ring of witness chalk, and a board in the yard door took their readings for anyone to read. Eight jars sat…