The morning air inside the open-sided firing shed was thick with the scent of damp river silt, crushed charcoal, and cold brickwork.
The west firing kiln was the largest kiln in Kilnstep. A thirty-foot-long, arched brick tunnel built sixty years ago by Kezra’s grandfather. Its outside was banded with heavy iron barrel-hoops. Its firebox dropped four feet into the subsoil to draw a draft from the prevailing northwest winds. For decades, it had produced the heavy, dark-glazed heavy clay storage crocks and deep mixing bowls that made Kilnstep pottery renowned among the carrier guilds across three provinces. Over sixty years of nonstop firings, the inner firebricks had glass-fused into a smooth, glass-like melted rock waste that sealed the chimney pipes against heat loss. That created a sound chamber that rang with the slightest change in air pressure.
Maud Venn stood in the digging pit at the northeast corner of the kiln. She pointed the tip of her wooden folding rule at the exposed foundation course.
“Look here, Kezra,” Maud said, her voice echoing in the cavernous brick vault. “When Captain Hest Vale’s cavalry occupied the square three weeks ago, their sergeant convinced himself that our village watch had buried a cache of silver coin or military gunpowder beneath the firebox. They took iron crowbars to the flat stone slabs along the east trench and pried up the corner apron.”
