Alden Bram did not waste breath asking whether they had survived the night; one glance at the raw purple burn around Cael Ardent’s throat and the coiled hemp rope hanging dry on the tackle-hook told the old mason everything he needed to know.
Instead, before unrolling his builders’ vellum across the wide oak head of the central wine tun, Bram walked to the rear foundation wall of the cellar where the municipal aqueduct’s stone standpipe rose beside the cooling cistern. He drew his notched six-foot ash measuring rod from under his cloak and tapped its brass-shod tip three times against the lower granite courses.
Usually the mortar joints along the lower cistern wall wept cold, sweet spring water that smelled of mountain fern and clean gravel. This morning, where Bram’s rod struck the seam, a crust of warm, chalky gray silt flaked off the stone, releasing a sharp, mineral odor of boiled river mud and hot iron scale.
“Smell that mortar, Jon,” Bram grunted, leaning his cane against the cask and rubbing a pinch of the warm gray silt between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ve been down in the mill-race culvert and the lower ward sumps since five o’clock with Sister Oda. The bedrock under Old Hill is running ten degrees hotter than it was at midnight.”
