The cellar stairs were dark, steep, and cut straight into the living limestone ledge upon which the River Lantern had been raised eighty years before.
Jon descended slowly, carrying no candle to light his way.
He had taken off his heavy leather work boots at the top of the landing, leaving them beside the cellar bulkhead door next to his wool scarf and iron ring of keys. Through the thick, home-spun yarn of his gray stockings, the cold stone bit into the soles of his feet with sharp, immediate intensity—a clean, mineral chill that grounded his senses after the smoky warmth of the taproom above.
He knew every step by heart.
The fourth riser had a slight hollow worn into its center by three generations of taverners hauling cider casks; the seventh riser had a narrow chip knocked off its left corner where a barrel hoop had slipped during the great autumn flood; the twelfth step leveled off onto the hard, dry granite floor of the primary vault.
The cellar was vast, silent, and bitterly cold.
It smelled of damp clay, white lime wash, dried hops, cured pork, and that deep, ancient odor of wet riverstone that never completely dried out, even during the hottest dog-days of high summer. Along the north wall sat twenty barrels of autumn ale, chocked firmly with oak wedges to prevent the vibration of passing dray carts from loosening the bungs. Along the east wall stood the dry-well bins containing the last twenty sacks of…
