New York City — May 1764
May arrived with light that lingered.
Not the soft light of spring's first days, but a steadier thing—long afternoons that refused to end quickly, mornings that began before men were ready for them. The city moved earlier and slept later. Work expanded to fill the hours it had been denied through winter.
Thomas Hawthorne treated May as a month for lines.
Lines on paper. Lines on roads. Lines that separated what could still be moved quietly from what would soon be watched.
The shop adjusted again, not in size but in function.
The forge now worked as much for others as for itself. Hinges, bands, runners refitted for wheels, fittings for crates that were not Thomas's concern once they left his door. Raw material came in; shaped necessity went out. Nothing ornate. Nothing that invited admiration. Utility had a way of slipping past attention that beauty never did.
Margaret's second ledger gained a third column.
Not money. Not names.
Routes.
Where Crowell's wagons went. Which streets were questioned more often. Which docks saw uniformed men at certain hours. It was not intelligence in the grand sense. It was simply noticing patterns before they hardened into rules.
"You're mapping the city," Margaret said one evening, tapping the book lightly.
"I'm mapping behavior," Thomas replied. "The city is only the stage."
Pressure came from two directions at once.
The first was official.
A notice appeared—printed cleanly, nailed carefully—announcing expanded customs inspections on certain classes of goods. The language was polite. The implications were not.
Merchants gathered in knots to read it, then dispersed quickly as if proximity itself were dangerous.
Edmund Shaw returned within the hour, breathless.
"They've changed the forms," he said. "New declarations. New categories. They want to know where raw goods go after purchase."
"And do you?" Thomas asked.
Shaw blinked. "I know where mine go."
"Then answer for yours," Thomas said. "No one else's."
Shaw hesitated. "They'll think that evasive."
"They'll think everything evasive until they're told otherwise," Thomas replied. "Give them what is yours to give. Nothing more."
Shaw nodded, visibly calmer for having been told what not to do.
The second pressure came from below.
Two carpenters arrived together—Henry Collins and Robert Finch—men Thomas had seen at a distance all winter, neither foolish, neither thriving.
"We can't get stock," Collins said bluntly. "The yards say it's paperwork. The iron men say it's contracts. We say it's strangling."
Thomas listened without interruption.
"We don't want charity," Finch added quickly. "We want to work."
Thomas nodded. "Then work."
He sold them raw boards and iron fittings at prices that kept them alive without making them comfortable. He did not offer credit. He offered predictability.
"You'll pay on delivery," he said. "You'll finish what you start. And you'll remember that I helped you work, not helped you beg."
Both men agreed without hesitation. Pride survived best when it was allowed to.
By the end of the week, their shops were open again.
People noticed.
At the parish, May changed the tone.
The walls stood complete now, plain and unadorned, but solid enough that even critics had begun to speak of "the building" rather than "the project." Father Keane held meetings not about donations, but about schedules—Mass times, instruction, the quiet logistics of running something that intended to last.
Thomas attended once, stood at the back, spoke only when asked.
"We'll need benches," Keane said at one point.
"I'll provide timber," Thomas replied. "Unshaped. You'll have them made locally."
Keane nodded. "And stone for the steps?"
"Already ordered."
A man at the table frowned. "From where?"
Thomas met his eyes calmly. "From someone who delivers."
The frown faded into something like respect. Or caution.
After the meeting, Keane walked with Thomas partway down the street.
"You're building more than walls," the priest said.
Thomas did not deny it. "Walls make schedules possible. Schedules make communities predictable."
Keane smiled faintly. "You should have been a cleric."
Thomas shook his head. "I prefer results to sermons."
May also brought the first clear sign that quiet coordination was being noticed beyond New York.
A letter arrived from Boston, carried by a man who waited for a reply rather than leaving it with a clerk. It was addressed plainly. No flourish. No seal worth stealing.
Inside was a question, not a proposal.
Who supplies you when others cannot?
Thomas read it once, then again.
He did not answer directly.
He sent back a message just as plain.
I sell raw material. I do not promise more than I can deliver.
It was not an invitation. It was a test.
Late in the month, Matthew Crowell brought news that mattered.
"They've started timing inspections," Crowell said quietly, leaning against the shop's doorframe as if resting. "Not random anymore. Same hours. Same docks."
"Which ones?" Thomas asked.
Crowell named them.
Thomas nodded. "Then we avoid them."
Crowell hesitated. "That's a fine line."
"We stay on the right side of it," Thomas said. "We don't avoid law. We avoid congestion."
Crowell grinned despite himself. "You make it sound honest."
"It is," Thomas replied. "Just inconvenient for them."
On the final Sunday of May, Father Keane preached on stewardship.
Not of souls. Of responsibilities.
"Those who are given much," he said, "are judged not by what they claim, but by what they stabilize."
Thomas listened from the back.
Patrick Doyle, now copying contracts with care, listened too.
After Mass, Patrick waited.
"Mr. Hawthorne," he said, "Mr. Low asked me if you'd attend another supper."
Thomas considered. "Did he ask you?"
Patrick nodded.
"Then tell him yes," Thomas said. "And that I'll arrive when invited, not before."
Patrick smiled, proud to be trusted with messages that mattered.
On the last evening of the month, Thomas stood by the river again.
Ships passed each other without ceremony. Goods moved. Men shouted. Paper changed hands. Somewhere far away, Parliament debated words that would turn into burdens. Here, burdens already moved on wagons and in ledgers and in the careful silence of men who had learned not to say everything they knew.
Thomas turned back toward the shop.
Lines had been drawn.
June would test which of them could hold.