The oak firkins along the north foundation had sat in the same line of floor-grooves since Jon’s grandfather had mortared the lower cellar against spring seepage.
Each barrel weighed two hundred pounds when full of river salt and pickled pork belly. To move one without gouging the soft limestone flags required a carter’s lever—a four-foot length of seasoned ash wood notched with iron bands at the bite. Jon retrieved the lever from behind the vinegar press, jammed the iron wedge beneath the chime of the third firkin, and put his weight against the wood.
The oak gave a wet, sucking groan as the seal of dried brine broke from the stone. Salt dust rose in a gray cloud, stinging his nostrils with the sharp, mineral tang of cured meat and winter cellar rot. He walked the barrel forward inch by inch, his boot soles finding the familiar hollows between the flagstones, until a dark opening showed in the foundation behind the wood.
“Three inches of clearance,” he said quietly, wiping the sweat from his eyebrows with the sleeve of his rough wool tunic. “Enough for the wood, enough for the calfskin.”
The cavity was an unmortared pocket where the foundation wall met the dry shale of the valley ridge. Years ago, during his third winter of keeping the books, he had pulled four loose fieldstones from the course to inspect a water seep and discovered that the mason had left a void between the outer retaining trench and the cellar…
