"What happened in here?" she asked.
"Archaeology," Beorn said. "About eleven years of it, give or take. That depends on which document you believe. Most of them disagree with each other on the basic details."
She stepped farther into the room, carefully moving around the corner of the trash pile before stopping at the edge of the desk. Her attention stopped on the ledger margin. Beorn watched her work through it.
The charcoal strokes crossed the top of the page, ran down the side, and turned back along the bottom. Some shapes looked like rectangles that had closed poorly. Other lines angled off in directions that suggested the hand drawing them had changed its mind halfway through.
One shape in the middle had clearly started toward something, then drifted when it stopped being clear. The other half of the page was different. The marks there were tighter. The drawing looked better. Even where the outlines were still imprecise, they were at least moving toward a defined structure.
"What are these?" Aestrith asked.
"Working notes."
She tilted her head slightly as she examined the page again. "They look like failed art lessons."
"Yes," Beorn said. He picked up the charcoal stub and turned it between his fingers while he thought about how to explain the difference. "Some of them are exactly that. The others are working toward something I haven't found yet."
She reached across and rotated it a few degrees toward herself, adjusting the angle for a clearer view. Her eyes tracked the forms. "This one," she said, pointing to the section near the bottom. "What is that supposed to be?"
"A furnace," Beorn said. "Or at least the beginnings of one. The sketch maps how air should move through it and how the heat should build."
He paused, evaluating the drawing again. "It doesn't work as drawn. I already know that. There's a flaw somewhere in the flow pattern. I can tell something's wrong, but I haven't identified the correction yet."
She looked up at him. "A furnace."
"For metalworking. The goal is to run it hot enough, and stable enough, to produce consistent output."
He watched her try to follow the idea. "Iron. High-quality iron. Made to a standard instead of relying on whether the smith happens to be having a good morning."
"Made to a standard," she repeated again, slowly.
"Forget it for now," Beorn said. The project mattered, but it wasn't the priority tonight. He reached over and pointed to another scheme. "This one should be easier to recognize."
She studied the smaller drawing near the edge. After a beat her expression changed.
"That's a crossbow," she said.
"It's trying to be," Beorn replied. "The draw mechanism is wrong, and the projective geometry isn't where I want it. It will fire in its current form, but the results aren't consistent and the accuracy drops too much between shots."
She continued looking at the sketch, considering what that meant. "You're redesigning a crossbow."
"I'm trying to remember how to redesign a crossbow," he said. "There's a configuration that produces consistent accuracy across a production run. Every crossbow built from the same design performs the same way as the last. I know that configuration exists. I just haven't reconstructed the exact details yet."
Aestrith straightened and looked at him. Her expression went narrow and concentrated.
"Production run," she said. "How many weird terms are you going to use."
"Like I said," Beorn replied. "Forget it for now."
Her eyes moved along until they landed on the separate sheet he had set aside earlier. The limestone note. The line that read volcanic ash deposits with a question mark and a heavy line drawn beneath it.
"What's that one?"
"Building material," he said. "Something better than what Ashmark's walls are made from. A lot better, if it works."
She studied the question mark. "But."
"I need two things I don't have yet," Beorn said. "A material I haven't located and a process I haven't fully recovered." He picked up the quill and rolled it between his fingers while he considered the problem. "Once I have both of those, I'll explain what I mean by significantly better."
She watched him for a moment. Then she opened her coat. From the inner pocket she produced a folded page that had clearly been written on throughout the day. The original creases no longer lined up with the added notes. She held the paper out to him.
Beorn took it and unfolded it. His eyes moved down the list of names. Then she stepped away from the desk and sat on the edge of the couch,
He counted them.
"This is longer than the list I gave you," he said.
"Yes."
He raised his eyes. Aestrith had crossed her arms and was staring toward the window.
"The names you gave me were people already tied into existing arrangements. Most of them have been in the city long enough that the arrangement effectively defines them. I couldn't find a seam worth pulling."
She turned her gaze back toward him. "The ones I marked are the only possible exceptions. Two, maybe three who might be workable if the terms are right."
Beorn kept reading while she spoke.
"And the rest?" he asked.
"I expanded the search into the slums." She said it without any opening for debate. "Those people aren't tied into anyone's arrangements yet. The slums had options the rest of the city couldn't give me. It fits your situation better."
Beorn went through the longer portion of the list. The warehouse district names filled a few lines at the top. Beneath a dividing mark, the slums entries ran farther down. Each one had a short notation beside it. Skills, histories, brief impressions she had recorded while evaluating them.
"Godric," he said.
"Former garrison," she replied immediately. "He's cautious, but the caution comes from principles, not self-interest. Right now he's deciding whether you'll still be here in a month."
She glanced briefly toward the ceiling. "I'd take him if he decides to join. But he won't commit until he's convinced the government you're building won't collapse."
"Lewin."
"Young. Capable in a fight. He has a sister and a mother depending on him." She paused. "That means he avoids risks that would destabilize his situation. In practice that makes him more reliable."
Beorn nodded once and continued reading. The annotations were compact. Just a few words per person, but precise enough to compress an entire conversation into a line. He read through each one carefully. Twice he stopped when the wording left room for two interpretations. Both times he asked for clarification.
"This is good work," he said after reaching the bottom of the sheet.
Aestrith kept staring toward the window. "Hmm," she said, addressing the glass.
Beorn placed it on the useful stack. Two piles of paper. The open ledger. The limestone page with its unanswered question.
Somewhere during the reading the evening had arrived. The room had grown dim, and the charcoal marks were harder to distinguish in the fading light. The stone had been releasing its morning warmth all afternoon. The room was cool now, and the smell of the cold food had taken over it.
He should light a candle.
He didn't move yet.
"Staff first," he said instead. "We need reliable people running through the administration before anything else starts moving. Godric if he decides to come. Lewin if he shows up in the morning. After that, the rest of the names from your slums column, in the order suggested by your notes."
Aestrith turned away from the window. "And the building material?"
"That's the second problem," Beorn said. He turned to the limestone page. "I need to locate one thing and remember another." He set the quill down beside the paper. "Neither of those is tonight's problem."
She considered it briefly, then looked back at him. The trash pile remained in the corner. The small stack of documents sat where he'd left it. The plates still held the dried remains of the day's food. Outside, a cart rolled past on the main street, and the sound of its wheels echoed faintly through the stone.
"The list goes out tomorrow," Beorn said. "Whoever shows up, shows up. Then we work with what we have."