The covered carriage bay of the abandoned tannery was twenty paces down the lane, hidden behind a pair of sagging double timber gates whose iron hinges had broken thirty years ago during the winter floods. The air inside the bay was thick with the stale, bitter-salt stench of ancient lime vats, dry oak bark. The greasy odor of rotting hide scraps that had frozen into the earthen floor.
Len and Bram hauled the laundry cart through the narrow gap between the gates, easing the wheels over the raised wooden threshold with a single, timed together heave. They didn’t stop until the cart was buried deep in the shadows behind a row of eight-foot cedar tanning tubs. Massive, iron-hooped cylinders that had dried and split. It cast dense, overlapping pools of darkness across the back wall.
Ivara Quill slipped inside behind them, easing the left gate closed until only a half-inch upright seam remained open between the rotting oak planks. She pressed her eye to the crack. Her single hand held her brass transit flat against her chest to prevent the metal from clicking against her belt buckle.
“Hounds on the lane,” Ivara breathed.
Len dropped to one knee beside the wicker basket of the cart.
