The Gaol-Drop Messages

A bundle of oilcloth-wrapped notes dropped from the gaol above into the drains for the smugglers below — orders in a frightened hand, and a forged seal named.

Someone up in the dry cells has been passing word down. The notes are folded small, waxed, and stuffed into a ledged niche where the drain-water can't reach — a drop, worked for months. The hand is careful and afraid. Third cart wants the Vandahl face by the new moon; Keth's man will carry it if the seal holds. The clerk who cuts the seals is in the fourth cell now — he cut one stroke wrong on the last and they nearly caught the courier, so cut the new dies yourself and burn these. Tell the sump-side crew to stop leaving loads below the still water. We are two men short this month and the ledger says overflow. And, last, unsigned: if the House ever reads this, it was never me. It was the drains.