Sella Rusk did not open the outer grate to fetch the cylinder. She used the hooked iron poker from Hobb’s hearth, reached down the narrow stone clean-out shaft inside the scullery wall while Sergeant Berr held a lantern above her shoulder, and snagged the cord of the grease-wrapped parcel through the inner screen.
Before she carried it into the main hall, she held the oiled parchment at arm’s length and nodded to Prit.
The little bone steward climbed onto the scullery wash-bench, sniffed the tallow-sealed seam carefully, and touched the corner of his slate to the wax.
“No active claim-binding on the tallow, Mistress Rusk,” Prit reported, his dry voice cautious. “No register ink, either. It is ordinary mutton grease, cold-pressed linseed oil, and a sheet of draughtsman’s vellum from an artificer’s bench.”
Even so, Sella laid the cylinder on the cleared end of the trestle table away from Cale’s witness transcripts and used the point of her boot knife to slit the waxed twine.
Tessa Dene, Fen, Cale, and Prit gathered around the table edge as Sella flattened the stiff vellum sheet under two tin mugs. Noll Vey shifted his core sight into the damp mortar joints directly above the mantel so he could look straight down over Tessa’s shoulder in the orange glow of the hearth.
