Minas Tirith's western district, Textile Workshop One.
The factory building sweltered with dry heat. Fine fiber dust floated in the air, swirling and dancing in the shafts of light streaming through the high windows.
Hundreds of treadle-powered spinning machines ran at once, their clacking merging into a continuous roar.
Veylin stood on the iron walkway on the second floor, looking down at the bustle below.
Beside him, Golden Whistle tugged irritably at his collar.
"Too slow! This is far too slow!" Golden Whistle pointed at a female worker below who was carefully straightening yarn, his voice nearly drowning out the machines. "Yarn as fine as hair takes half a day to spin into a ball! Lord Veylin, we're going to war, not a ball! Can't we just twist it into thick ropes? As long as we can wrap it around ourselves and not freeze to death!"
Facing them stood the textile workshop's manager, a middle-aged man named Old Harmon. He clutched a handful of sample yarn, his face flushed red. Clearly, he had already spent quite some time arguing with the irascible Baron.
"My lord Baron, that goes against proper practice!" Old Harmon fought to uphold his dignity as a craftsman. "You asked for a base fabric capable of holding enchantments! If the yarn is too thick, breaks will form in its magical conductivity, and the failure rate when inscribing runes will exceed eighty percent! That's wasteful! It's criminal!"
"Waste is better than freezing to death!" Golden Whistle slapped the railing, making the iron bars hum. "Do you know what things are like in Golden Thread Province right now? My sheep haven't even been shorn, and weaving here is crawling along. Two months? At this rate, we won't have thirty thousand sets in two years!"
Veylin's gaze swept over the