New York City — December 1763
Peace had arrived on paper before it arrived in practice.
If the war was over, the city did not yet live as though it believed it. Soldiers did not pour back into streets with coin. Prices did not settle into kindness. Ships waited. Men waited. Waiting made people sharp.
The first time Thomas heard the word treaty spoken as something real, it was inside his shop.
Elias Brouwer stood just inside the doorway with his hat held stiffly in both hands, as though unsure whether to remove it or keep it on.
"They say Paris is done talking," Brouwer said. "France is out."
Thomas kept working. "And the terms?"
Brouwer's mouth twisted. "Signed there. Explained here."
That was the danger. Not that men in Europe made agreements—men always did. The danger was that agreements would be interpreted in ways that created new chains.
In the first week of December, customs men began to appear more often. Not enforcing yet—measuring. Counting barrels. Asking merchants what their cargo was and where it had been. Clerks sharpened pens. Dockmasters started to speak in shorter sentences.
Caleb Thorn returned, not with an offer but with a warning that still sounded like self-interest.
"Britain will tighten trade," Thorn said flatly. "They always do after peace. Customs, duties, paperwork. They'll want order."
"And repayment," Thomas said.
Thorn shrugged. "Debt always finds a throat to press."
Thomas did not argue. He simply adjusted.
He expanded the forge.
Not by making it grand, but by making it reliable. More coal stored where damp could not steal its bite. More raw iron converted into bands, hinges, nails. He made what the shop needed first, then what the neighborhood needed, and only then what merchants requested. He refused exclusivity twice more. Each refusal became a stone laid in place: he would not be owned, not even by those who smiled.
Men began to arrive not only seeking wages, but seeking stability.
A veteran named Ephraim Ward came with a scar across his throat and an arm that did not fully straighten. Thomas hired him for steady tasks, not heavy ones, and paid him the same. Ephraim's gratitude was quiet and therefore useful.
A widow named Brigid Malloy came through Father Keane, asking not for coin but for work that would not shame her. Margaret assessed her with a glance and put her to stitching aprons and mending sacks and keeping the stove area clean. Brigid worked without complaint. Brigid spoke to other women. Other women listened.
This was what "people as currency" meant in practice: not buying loyalty with speeches, but earning it with predictability.
Patrick Doyle learned fast. Too fast for sums alone. Thomas noticed how Patrick watched the ledger, eyes tracing lines as if the numbers were roads.
"You like the book," Thomas said one evening.
Patrick flushed. "I like knowing what's true."
Thomas nodded. "Then you'll learn to write a clean hand. You'll learn to shut your mouth when men ask you questions."
Patrick swallowed. "Yes, sir."
Pieter, hearing only tone and a few words, glanced up. "Boy good?"
"Boy careful," Thomas replied.
In the second week of December, Father Keane spoke to Thomas again after Mass, quietly, in the shadow of the church door where Protestant eyes rarely lingered.
"We need walls," the priest said.
Thomas understood immediately. Not alms. Not charity baskets. Walls meant permanence. Walls meant a place that could survive rumor and pressure.
"Land?" Thomas asked.
"A plot," Father Keane said, careful. "Not large. Enough. But we will be watched if we build too boldly."
Thomas considered that. Stone and brick were raw. The material would never be the problem. The problem would be the city's suspicion, and suspicion was fed by speed and display.
"We build in stages," Thomas said. "Quietly."
Father Keane's shoulders eased by half a breath. "And funding?"
Thomas did not answer like a benefactor. He answered like a man laying beams.
"I will pay for stone and brick," he said. "You will keep records. Clean ones. Not for pride. For protection."
The priest nodded. "Agreed."
That night, Thomas ordered bricks.
Not finished ornament, not carved beauty—raw brick, plain and strong, stacked where they would not be seen from the street. He did not build a cathedral in a day. He began an institution the way he began everything: with a foundation that did not ask permission.
Outside the shop, winter tightened again. Ice edged the river in the early mornings. Ships sat longer. Men argued more. The militia notice boards gained new paper.
Ensign Hale returned once, hat pulled low.
"They're talking about keeping men longer," Hale said, voice strained. "Not rotating like before."
Thomas watched him carefully. "Who's talking?"
Hale hesitated. "Officers. London men. They say… order must be maintained."
Thomas nodded once. "Order for whom."
Hale did not answer. He did not need to.
After Hale left, Thomas opened the ledger and the blank page of names beside it. He added a few more: a clerk who kept customs records, a carter who moved heavy loads without gossip, a dock watchman who saw more than he said.
Not spies. Not agents. Just people who lived in the seams between proclamations.
By the end of December, peace still felt like a rumor. The treaty existed somewhere far away, but the consequences were already walking the streets in boots and ink.
Thomas stood in the shop after closing, listening to iron cool. The forge ticked softly as metal contracted. The sound was honest. It promised nothing except what it was.
Peace was coming.
It would not be enough.
Thomas locked the door and went to sleep behind the bench, the smell of oak and coal and iron settling into the dark.
Tomorrow, work would continue.
And history would continue too, whether anyone liked it or not.