The lid of the chest came free with a dry, reluctant hiss that smelled of twenty-five-year-old cedar shavings, cold bitter pine-resin, and beeswax.
Tomas and Nessa worked on the flat bottom boards of the punt, sheltered from the wind beneath a low awning of tarred canvas that Pip had rigged across the boat sides. Two tin lanterns hung from the center ridge-rope, their yellow light lighting up a clean worktable made from two dry pine hatch-boards laid across the cargo thwarts.
Inside the outer iron-banded chest sat a backup container. A seamless box of heavy sheet lead, its soldered joints sealed with a thick fillet of black pitch.
“Alia Sen knew her business,” Nessa said, her fingers tracing the lead solder line. “She knew the peat water would eventually corrode the iron bands. So she cased the archive in tiny lead sheet. Lead doesn’t pit in acidic bog water. It forms an insoluble layer of lead sulfate that protects the metal for hundreds of years.”
Tomas took his bone spatula, carefully cutting through the pitch seal along the rim.
With a dull, metal peeling sound, he lifted the lead lid.
Inside lay four thick sheepskin folios, nestled tightly in a bed of dry cedar shavings and wrapped in oiled silk wrappers that had turned semi-clear with age.
