Idrin took the Foundation stores inventory himself, by hand, with a plain list and a lamp, because Velvet had asked him to find a rod and he would rather know what the Hold owned than be told it by a clerk.
The stores lay in the cellar under the Gatehouse, behind an oak door that had been bound in iron by somebody who had expected to be robbed and had been right. The door had a Foundation lock, a heavy thing of black metal with the old mark cut into its face, a V with a short bar across its foot. Tallow had the key on his watch-chain. He turned it with some ceremony, and the bolt went back with a sound like a bone being set, and the cold came out of the room to meet them like a breath from a well.
“Range on the air,” said Tallow, and sniffed. “Dry. Two centuries of dust and no damp at all. The Foundation knew how to keep its cellars.”
“The Foundation kept its wages in them,” said Idrin.
“Yes, Highness. I have always thought it an odd thing to be proud of.”
The stores were arranged in long low racks along the walls, and the racks were stacked with cases. Some were wooden and some were iron and a few were lined with cedar, and every one had been stamped on its lid with the Foundation’s mark, so that the cellar seemed to be full of small square V’s…
