The eastern street of the warehouse district had a different noise from a week ago. The loading rhythms were still there, carts, voices calling counts, bay doors swinging on their hinges.
But underneath all of that was something new.
The hollow thud of shelving being broken apart, the tap of stone being fitted into stone.
On the roof of one of the eastern buildings, a crew was adding a chimney stack, and the mortar smell reached the street before the building itself came into view.
Beorn walked the length of it on his way in, ledger under his arm. Charcoal was already moving across the margin with the absentminded habit of a hand that worked while the mind was elsewhere.
The two buildings on the eastern stretch had been cleared of their contents, the first with its loading bay doors removed and a timber frame braced in the opening.
Two men were inside the hole, arguing about where to put a second support beam.
