The iron-banded cellar door of the Merchant Guild’s exchange smelled of dry rot, fermented blackberry mash, and ancient river silt.
It stood four inches thick, oak planks bolted between straps of blackened pig-iron, anchored into three feet of dressed granite stonework. Master Weaver Corin had already set six able-bodied dockworkers to the task of wedging two empty four-hundred-gallon wine puncheons against the lower crossbar, effectively transforming the arched entryway into an unmoving wooden barricade.
“Ren,” Corin called out, his leather apron stiff with drying river mud as he wiped sweat from his bearded chin. “We’ve checked the outer edge. There are four vaults branching off the central barrel gallery. Two are filled with vinegar barrels, one has dry straw and merchant packaging wool. The fourth has forty sacks of green coffee beans from the southern trade fleet.”
“The coffee beans can be boiled into a bitter stimulant,” a dry, high-born voice drawled from the corner behind an oak rack.
Vane Vale stepped into the lantern light, brushing tiny motes of sawdust from the sleeves of his midnight-blue velvet coat. He held a small chunk of animal fat chalk in his gloved fingers, scratching rapid numerical tallies across the face of a dried wine cask. Meanwhile, his gold-trimmed pocket counting frame clicked in his left palm with rhythmic malice.
