Dream d1790-s: Counted Paces, Open Petitions

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the fog had not lifted by the time we were at work.

The testing grounds lay at the eastern edge of Marrowwharf, a long strip of tamped earth with measured rope-lines and painted stakes every five paces. I stood at the near end with the Bridgekeeper, a wide-shouldered woman who spoke in short declarative sentences and expected the same in return. She handed me a bundle of fletched bolts to carry and walked the line herself, counting under her breath.

"Four yesterday. Seven the day before," she said, meaning the number of locals who had come to test the ground. "Word travels."

The Builder crouched at a stake near the midpoint, pressing her thumb into the earth. "Frost heave," she said without looking up. "Your measurements drift in spring. You'll want to re-pin after the last cold snap." The Bridgekeeper looked at her for a moment, then nodded and made a mark in her own ledger.

Lano had stationed herself at the rope-line near the end, nose low, tracking something across the measured earth. Her ears were up, tail slow. She found a boot-print in the softer margin of the strip and sat beside it, patient, as if filing it.

We moved to the moot hall by midmorning. The petitions were stacked in a way that told their own story - the oldest at the bottom, sealed tight, wax gone dull; the newest on top, wax still bright, the sigils pressed hard with care. Someone was still bringing them. Someone believed the hall would open and the seals would matter.

The Weather Reader set her barometric instrument on the hall steps and read the column while I untied the newest stack. "Pressure's been steady three days," she said. "Whatever is coming, it hasn't announced itself yet."

"That's when you work," I said.

"Exactly."

I read the petition subjects aloud: a water-right dispute along the northern channel, a claim on a granary parcel, a request for a surveyor, a question about the old road-toll statute. The Bridgekeeper listened with her arms crossed. When I reached the surveyor request she put out her hand and I passed it to her.

"That one I can answer myself," she said. "I just needed someone to read it to me so I'd hear it properly."

Lano pressed her nose against the base of the petition stack and sneezed once - verdad - then padded to the doorway and sat facing outward, watching the fog thin along the main street. There was still work in the afternoon. The Bridgekeeper had shown us the timbers at the north wall that needed assessment, and the Builder had her chalk ready.