The kitchen table smelled of warm neatsfoot oil, freshly shaved rawhide, and the sharp, vinegar tang of lime wash drying along the baseboards.
Len sat on the three-legged ash stool, his knees clamped around the heavy leather strip of his old courier belt. The belt was an heirloom from the northern postal network: four feet of triple-thickness steer hide, an inch and three-quarters wide. It was stamped at regular intervals with the three running horses of the Tern Road postal guild. Near the tongue, a massive double-tongued brass frame buckle was secured by three copper rivets. A buckle forged to survive five hundred pounds of dynamic pack load without yielding a fraction of an inch.
Under Ivara’s direction, Len was destroying it.
Using the curved blade of his carbon-steel belt knife, guided by his uninjured right hand, he sliced through the heavy waxed linen thread binding the buckle flap. The blade bit into the seasoned steer hide with a dry, crunching rasp: snick, snick, snick.
With a final twisting pry of the steel tip, the three copper rivets sliced through. The heavy brass buckle clattered onto the pine frame stand table, landing with a cold, metal ring beside the lead proof token.
