The Willow Sluice Hospice sat in the black water like a dying river galley run aground upon a gravel spit.
Its massive two-story superstructure, built from squared heart-oak timbers eight inches thick, had listed sixty-two degrees to the southeast when eight of its twelve southern support wooden support posts snapped under the weight of an ancient peat-slip twenty winters ago. The entire lower floor was drowned beneath seven feet of tea-colored marsh water. Meanwhile, the upper bunkhouse clung to the gray sky at a dizzying angle, its split-shingle roof largely collapsed into a rotting jumble of moss and rafters.
Tomas brought the punt alongside the northern porch. There, four massive oak wooden support posts still stood plumb against the current.
The wood of the wooden support posts was extraordinary. It hadn’t rotted into brown sponge. The tannic acids and bog-iron of the deep fen had turned the seasoned heart-oak into something resembling black dark rock. Rock-hard, smooth as polished horn, and smelling faintly of vinegar and old soot.
Nessa stood up in the bow, her hands testing the solid strength of the main doorstep-beam. She leaned her full weight against the timber. She listened through her feet for the underground groan of shifting joints.
