Tallow and Tannery Ink

The heavy pile of Master Eldon’s velvet curtain muffled the sharp scrape of Sergeant Corin’s iron-shod boots, but it did nothing to keep out the lantern light. A narrow seam of dull amber spilled beneath the weighted hem, cutting across the oak floorboards and striking the damp calfskin leaf trembling in Jory’s hands. His knees, stiffened by thirty years of squatting over tailoring benches and further abused by the climb up the canal chute, gave an ominous pop as he sank onto his haunches.

"Keep your joints quiet," Bramblefoot hissed, his breath warm against the nape of Jory’s neck. The captain was wedged tightly between two upright bolts of undyed wool, smelling powerfully of marsh silt and brackish river brine.

"I am trying, Captain," Jory muttered under his breath, nudging his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose with his forearm. "Some of us have cartilage that predates your commission."

In the front showroom, the brass cage of Corin’s watch lantern gave a heavy, ringing thump against the counter timber. "A bolted latch means nothing to canal-rats, Eldon," the sergeant’s voice barked, closer now, accompanied by the dry snap of the tailor’s iron shears setting down on hardwood. "The customs clerk saw them drop the ox-hide binder right off the weir timbers. Half the Third Quarter fleece accounts are floating out to the bar, and Master Garrow wants heads for it."

Beside Jory, Pip huddled in his oversized, sodden fishing waders, shivering so hard his teeth threatened to clatter. He paused with a scrap of rusted hoop-iron in his hand, having been midway through scraping a crust of dried mill-flour from the heel of his boot, and pointed a finger toward the parchment.

"Look at the lower margin," Pip whispered. "Under the three towers."

Jory angled the page toward the floor-level glow. The Crown’s raised wax seal had flattened into a cracked red disc against the vellum, but just below its stamped border, someone had scratched a line of notation in iron-gall ink. It lacked the flourishing, rhythmic hand of the guild’s junior clerks. The numbers were jagged, notched like timber-tallies, and preceded by a municipal glyph Jory recognized from his early days measuring hemp sacking for the city stores.

"It isn't fleece," Jory whispered, his ink-stained finger tracing the crabbed symbols. "These aren't wool weights at all."

"Gold?" Bramblefoot’s whiskers brushed Jory's ear as he leaned down, nearly knocking Jory's spectacles askew again.

"Grain tallies," Jory whispered back. "Or rather, the grain reserve that was condemned three winters ago during the damp rot. Garrow didn't burn it. He has it logged under an auxiliary storehouse code—the old cellars beneath the tannery lane, right against the foundation of the East Gate."

Pip let out a low whistle, immediately cut short as Bramblefoot kicked his shin. "The tannery vaults?" Pip murmured, rubbing his bruised leg. "Nobody goes near the pits unless they're carting dog-dung or bark liquor. It's the only place in the lower ward the night watch won't patrol with an open flame."