Night in Canton Vane smelled of smoldering sheep fat and very thirsty straw roof. The heat of the day refused to leave the valley floor, streaming back up from the cracked clay like the breath of a dying fire.
Tomas Reed, Nessa Vale, and Sile Rook followed Caleb down a narrow lane bordered by dry, withered hedgerows of hawthorn. No lamps burned in the windows of the low stone cottages. The peasant families sat outside on their doorsteps in the stifling dark, speaking in hushed, weary voices, watching the three strangers pass with the suspicious, hollow-eyed gaze of people who had run out of flour and were measuring their well water by the thimbleful.
At the center of the village stood the communal tithe barn. A massive, timber-framed structure built during the early settlement of the canton. Its stone footings were four feet high, laid with rough fieldstone, supporting massive curved cruck timbers of seasoned English oak that met forty feet above in a cathedral arch. The air inside the barn was cool and dry. He smelled of old rye straw, dry oats. The bitter dust of dried elderberry leaves hung from the roof beams to keep away weevils.
Caleb pushed open the heavy wicket door, latching it behind them with a thick ash drop-bar.
