Morning came in clean lines: Oakwatch blinked once from its new mirror cradle; the river walked past Glass Isle like it had somewhere polite to be; the horn cairns along Founders' Way hummed the same note when Jory tapped them—each a syllable in the language of ready. 🙂
— Morning Brief — Novaterra• Cordon: Riversong Fort arcs steady; spawn window 8–13 days (watch)• Drum Lexicon v0.1: Jory & Ras to draft (count/edge mapping)• Market Day at Neutral Knoll; post Pact of Brooms signage• Audit: water & waste flows (mill / Glass Isle)• After-Sight: Ready (0/1)• Morale: Work-bright 🙂
Venn had written DRUM LEXICON on a slate like he meant to marry it. Ras tapped pegs in patterns—short-short-long for 3, short-short-short-long for 4—and Jory, delighted beyond what a man should be before breakfast, translated into tidy runes.
"Edges are banks," Ras said, sure. "Count is bodies. You tell the ditch where to put its teeth."
"Then we'll use the ditch's teeth to count itself out of a meal," Jory murmured, wicked. 🫡
Bryn slid a folded handbill across the table: coarse paper, walnut ink, smug. RIVERS FLOW QUIET UNTIL GLASS POISONS THEM. NOVATERRA SUFFOCATES FISH, CUTS WEIRS, HOARDS BREAD. RIVERSHORE CHILDREN COUGH. BRING YOUR TRADE WHERE WATER IS HONEST. It stank of certainty and bad arithmetic.
"Posted at Millcross Rise," Bryn said. "Two more at Turnstone and the Knoll spur."
Elara didn't flinch. "Paper problem," she said. "We use ledgers."
Venn's fingers rolled the sheet like a sin. "Hand," he said, pointing at the letters. "See the loop on the k? That's Pike's circle—or someone imitating their clerk. Ink's walnut, but the run in the g's tail says char-stub mixed in. Cheap. The paper's from Turnstone press—you can smell the lye they skimped on the rinse."
"Bridge Law says nothing about lies," Mara observed, ladle looped to her belt like a quiet threat. "We'll fix it anyway." 🍲😑
Clove floated into the doorway like a coincidence wearing boots. "If I were a dishonest note," he said mildly, "I'd be carried in flour sacks. Trade wagons go everywhere; parchment likes to pretend to be bread. Also—the stamp at the corner is backwards. Turnstone prints their T with a chipped serif. This one isn't chipped."
"Why are you helpful?" Aiden asked.
"I enjoy clean roads and honest soup," Clove said. "My employer thinks both are bad for margins." He smiled like a pond in wind. "Hate to disappoint."
"Venn, audit everything," Aiden said. "Mill effluent, kiln ash, ash bucket rack (again). Kessa—crown temps log; Émile, cullet disposal log; Calder, fish ladder checks. Jory, mirror-calls to the Knoll and to Duvall: . — (ready?), we answer — . (ready). Bryn—find me paper feet."
Elara tapped her helm against her thigh. "And we put this on the board," she said. She chalked in clear letters beside Bridge Law: NO LIBEL THAT DAMAGES FOOD OR WATER—FINES TO WIDOWS' ROPE. The board did not complain. Venn added a neat footnote: proven by ledger, not rumor.
*— Accord Addendum — Bridge Law (Market Harm)• False allegations harming food/water: fine + work-service (road cleaning/broom)• Proof requires open audit; arbitrator: Knoll council (rotating) *
The Knoll began like honesty despite the handbills. Flags breathed; carts queued; the soup line behaved like law. Lucien Duvall arrived with that annoying elegance and a spare broom lashed to his saddle, because men like him enjoy stealing other people's good metaphors and paying for them in public.
"Ugly paper," he said, handing Aiden one of the handbills with two fingers, as if it might stain.
"Audit, then bonfire," Aiden replied.
They called arbitration under Bridge Law. The plank boards were laid where all eyes could see; the Bell-Code hung nearby like grammar. Venn stood with a roll of sheets, calm as a hanging judge who loved numbers and not drama.
"Novaterra stands accused of poisoning water and hoarding food," Venn recited. "We answer with ledgers."
Kessa spoke the kiln's temperatures like a recipe: crown held low when doors opened, bench windbreak extended after yesterday's flare, cullet remelted, lye neutralized with ash and river water in a pit lined with clay (Ansel's favorite clay). Émile demonstrated with a jar: a clear strata, no oily skim. He did not look offended; he looked like a craftsman asked to show his homework. "Glass is vain," he admitted. "It shows its mistakes. Today it shows none."
Calder laid fish ladder logs on the plank: counts of runs, fingerlings that had names because Lia's cousin had started naming them and now everybody did. "The river's breathing," he said dryly. "If you must blame someone for fish, blame hunger. We won't let you."
Mara put down sacks receipts: barley in, bread out, Night Soup rota lines so neat they could be used to teach letters. "No hoarding," she said. "We wear out spoons faster than we fill bins." 🍲🙂
Duvall, for once, did not flourish. He produced his own audit copies—salt sacks exchanged, linen to clinic, kiln fuel trades. "If Novaterra is lying," he said, "I'm a fool. I am not a fool."
Venn held up the handbill again. "Now," he said, "ink."
The Turnstone press master was fetched (unhappy, then curious). One look at the corner mark and he swore like someone insulting himself with creativity. "Not mine," he declared. He turned the paper edge and sniffed. "Wrong water. We use well. This smells like Knoll water—ash-sweet, glass-sour, which is to say it was dried near a new kiln. Stupid."
Kessa smiled around her teeth. "Thank you for the compliment," she said.
Bryn produced two flour sacks with their seams unpicked and their bellies guilty: handbills bound with twine, each lined with beads like an afterthought.
"Hi," she told the crowd. "Your rumor comes with a trinket."
Murmurs ran like mice. Elara's chin moved half a degree. Jory put his mouthpiece in like a man restraining a sermon.
Clove drifted himself into the center at exactly the moment a new sack rolled to the edge of the crowd—a small, clever cart with one wheel that squeaked like a confession. The boy pushing it had the look of someone paid to not ask questions.
"Two short," Jory breathed, and the crowd made space without knowing they had obeyed a horn.
Aiden touched After-Sight then—not for war, for risk. The world admitted a thin line of malice: under the false bottom of the cart, a packet wired clumsy with twine and oil, meant to break glass and spill stink. Not deadly—theater.
"Ras," Aiden said, giving him the quiet numbers. "Elara," he added, softer.
Ras crouched; Elara set a flag white (parley) up and her voice down. "Don't be brave," she told the boy. "Be good."
He stood very still. Ras cut one knot like a sigh. The packet came away with a wet that never got a chance to smell interesting. Calder's people covered it with a wet cloth; Mara set a bucket under it like an old god. The crowd… breathed.
"You brought theater to a market," Venn said to the air, patient as a schoolmaster correcting a pencil.
Lucien plucked one tucked handbill from the cart's honest flour and read it with disdain. "It is always the adjectives that betray a forger," he remarked. "Rivers cannot be 'morally oily'."
A laugh broke the tension carefully. 🙂
Bryn's hand touched the shoulder of a man tied to Pike by the day's rumors—Tollross, a factor who had enjoyed soft shoes earlier this year. His coat's thread looked guiltier up close. "Walk," Bryn said. He walked.
They didn't beat him. They didn't drag him. They put him at the plank and put a pen in his hand.
"Write where you printed," Venn said. "Write who paid."
Tollross stared like a man deciding whether to be dangerous or useful. Mara, behind him, tilted the ladle until its shadow picked out the shape of his ear. He wrote: Knoll back alley; coin from Pike's circle, agent Varlo; press frame built from two crate lids.
Elara's brows climbed a fraction. "Varlo Penn?" she asked, and was not surprised. The debt-broker who had tried to take Tessa's loom found himself named by ink that would not wash.
Venn concluded with the pleasure of a man closing a drawer. "Findings: forgeries printed in Knoll (not Turnstone), financed by Pike's old circle through Varlo Penn; delivered in flour sacks; accompanied by beads and a stink packet to spoil reputation."
"Remedy," Aiden said. "Under Bridge Law: fine to Widows' Rope equal to the week's market take, paid by Pike's circle and Varlo (joint, several). Work-service: brooms on the road and latrine duty at Glass Isle for thirty days. The cart-boy gets soup and goes home." 🍲🙂
Lucien added, elegantly cruel, "And I will not honor any note drawn by Varlo in my markets for a season. Credit dies as easily as fish, you know."
Clove coughed. "Also, we are missing the obvious," he said apologetically. He flipped a handbill to show the back—a faint impression of a drum pattern under the ink, where the crate lid had been used for a pegged jig. "Your forgers stood the printing frame on a stolen drum board. They told on themselves."
Jory beamed as if someone had let him write the punchline of a very good joke. Ras's pebble clicked against another on the plank, meaning caught. 🫡
— Arbitration — Bridge Law (Market Harm)• Forgeries proven: yes (Knoll; Pike circle; Varlo Penn)• Fine: week's market take → Widows' Rope Fund• Work-service: 30 days (broom patrol + Glass Isle hygiene)• Credit sanction: Varlo Penn notes void in Duvall markets (1 season)• Confiscated: press frame (crate lids), bead tray, stink packet (neutralized)
They made a small fire at the Knoll's edge with a square of stone and a polite wind. The handbills died in it without ceremony. Children watched and did not cheer. Mara folded one singed corner into the Widows' rope basket as a caution before it turned to ash.
Varlo did not show himself; Pike's name did not walk into sunlight. The circle had taken a bruise that would teach tomorrow.
"Reputation," Venn read from an invisible page in his head. "Novaterra—Ledger-Loyal. Moth influence, locally—minus ten and sulking." He allowed himself one small smile. 🙂
— System: Reputation• Tag earned: Ledger-Loyal (markets trust audits; panic vs rumor −20%)• Grey Moth influence: −10% in Knoll radius (paper stings weaken)
Duvall, who had served his full hour of soup ladling last week and looked as if it had made him a better man against his will, lifted the broom from his saddle.
"Shall we sweep?" he asked. "Not metaphor. Actual sweeping. I find it keeps pride at a reasonable temperature."
Aiden took his own broom, grinning despite himself. "Sweep," he said, and they did: posts, plank edges, shrine stones. Ana of Silverbrook grinned like a woman whose stick had become a banner and then useful again. 🧹
Afternoon wore work like a well-fitted shirt.
Glass Isle: Kessa logged crown temps; Émile cured saggers; the latrine pits were dug to code that would have impressed gods and midwives. Tollross (penitent) learned to haul ash.
Mill: gear housing greased; fish ladder checked; Lia's cousin counted fingerlings and gave them boring names to keep death away.
Pathfinders: Bryn & Ras marked two more drum pegs they found tucked into a hedgerow—someone had been practicing count near the road. A flag went up: NOT SOUP.
Drum Lexicon: Jory added edge symbols and started a neat "drum to horn" table: 3 left bank = 5 rising then 7 steady. He was intolerable about it and everyone loved him anyway. 🫡
Clove left another folded note on the audit plank, this one shorter.
You noticed the backwards T. Good.Someone will try a better stamp next time.Nail the back of your boards, too.— C.
Venn hammered two more nails into the Pact sign with relish. "Backs matter," he said, as if this were philosophy and not carpentry.
At last light, Oakwatch flashed — . (ready). Cairn #8 returned . — (ready?). Jory laughed and sent — . back with the forgiveness of an older brother. On the far ridge, three Three Slashes riders watched the Knoll's quiet industry and decided, again, to be someone else's problem today.
The Fort pushed a darker smoke once, thought about a sally, and didn't like its odds against bored men with good legs. The ring held.
Mara ladled Night Soup at the shrine. Varlo's runner—who had pushed the squeaky cart and looked like a child who had just learned adults can choose better—ate two bowls and then volunteered to sweep. "Good," Mara said, as if he had just signed a treaty. 🍲🙂
Elara bumped Aiden's shoulder with the back of her hand. "We made words behave," she said.
"We nailed the boards," he answered, hearing Clove in it and not minding.
"Good arithmetic," she said, and that was blessing and accounting at once.
"Novaterra," Aiden told the Knoll and the cairns and the little island that held fire without gossiping, "we answered lies with ledgers, burned paper without burning bridges, and swept our own threshold. Reputation weighs more than rumor if you feed it. No heroics. Just work." 🙂
The wind slid down a gourd and came out as two short—make way. Carts stepped out without being asked; no toll was charged for courtesy.
— Evening Summary — Novaterra / Neutral Knoll• Forgery sting exposed (Pike circle + Varlo Penn); fines to Widows' Rope; 30 days work-service (brooms + Glass Isle hygiene)• Accord Addendum: Market harm (libel) → fines/work-service (proof by audit)• Reputation: Ledger-Loyal (panic vs rumor −20%); Grey Moth influence −10% (local)• Drum Lexicon v0.1 drafted (count/edge → horn calls); "drum-to-horn" table started• Cordon steady; Fort window 8–13 days; sally appetite low• Morale: Steady-bright; pride dusted, not puffed 🙂