Pel's room was warmest beside the wall. He had put his chair there, with a kettle, a chipped cup and a bag of mending. From the narrow window he could see the lock gates turn.
“Thirty-nine years,” he said when Selka looked out. “I know which one sticks in a north wind. They put new men on and never tell them.”
Anet sank into the second chair. Pel watched her reach for the dark pendant.
“That gone?”
She nodded.
He took a short connecting tube from a hook by the wall. “Same fittings. They never change what already makes money.”
Sorell inspected it, then Anet. The girl held her pendant steady while the forewoman joined it to a narrow branch from the main wall pipe. Warmth returned to the bronze. Anet drew a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Selka saw relief run through her before she could stop it. There was still supply. They could stay here. They could give Ruun back to the chamber and choose to think about something else.
Pel brought out a rough drawing of the lifting frame.
“The anchor's inside,” he said. “You know that. Voss has put men at the stair and men by the lever. The arms are braced over the collar. You won't get a hammer in.”
“The branch holds the frame engaged,” Anet said.
He looked at her with more interest. “The flow keeps those hinged arms over the crown. If you stop it here—” He pointed at the bend above the chamber. “The arms fall clear. Then you can get at the collar and its pin.”
Selka traced the access ledge on the drawing. It passed above the defended floor. Too narrow for Ruun, perhaps narrow enough that the guards would not expect a person.
“Where do you cut it?”
Pel opened the shutter over the room's second window. The ledge ran beneath them toward a small iron platform. Across it went the bronze pipe, thick but old, with a bolted repair seam.
Anet studied the bolts. “We can loosen most of those now. Cut the last hold when they can't close the lever.”
“No,” Selka said.
Her daughter looked at her.
“Your supply's on that branch.”
“Yes.”
“You can't take the reserve with you.”
“It's empty.”
Pel touched his chest. The same warmth moved there.
“Could we disconnect you both?” Selka asked Sorell. “Use the bellows now?”
The forewoman looked through the window. “We can support her in a chair. Not climbing that ledge. Not while those men are coming up the stairs.”
“Then you do the pipe,” Selka said. “I stay with her.”
Sorell took the wrench and climbed out. Selka followed as far as the platform. The nearest bolt faced them, easy to reach. The others were behind the pipe, boxed in by an upright brace. Sorell knelt, threaded her arm through the gap and tried to turn the tool. Her elbow struck stone. She shifted, tried again, and had to pull her arm out to get it free.
“The last hold's back there too,” she said. “I can touch it. I can't work it.”
“Let me.”
Anet came onto the ledge with her tube trailing behind her. She knelt where Sorell had knelt, slipped her smaller forearm under the brace and turned the rear bolt a little. Then she stopped, leaving it seated.
“That one first,” she told Sorell. “It'll try to twist the seam if I start at the front.”
The forewoman nodded and checked the position of her wrist. “Little turns. And stop if it starts to pull.”
Selka stared at the gap. Anet's sleeve was caught against the bronze; even she barely had room. Below the platform the defended chamber waited, with the anchor under its frame.
Sorell looked down toward the service stair. “Iven and I will be there with the rope and bellows. You get to the crown when it opens.”
“I can hold the pipe until then,” Anet said. “That'll get me across.”
“And when you cut?”
“You'll get me down.”
She said it with fear, not certainty. Selka could hear the difference.
They came back through the window. Pel went to the bed and began packing his mending. “We'll get clear. There's time tonight.”
“The washhouse pipe above the bridge is still warm,” Selka said. “We'll get you connected there before this branch goes.”
His hands shook over the bag. Anet watched him, then settled the small wrench into her belt.
Ruun stood in the doorway. Water dripped from its coat onto Pel's floor. It could not break the anchor that held its own movement. It could not work the ledge with those feet. It was dependent on the people its freedom threatened.
Selka steadied the trailing tube while Anet went back out. She kept holding it until the girl had settled beside the brace.