At the foot of the altar, beneath the kneeling skeleton of Captain Brand, stood three heavy heart-oak firkins.
Each barrel was eighteen inches high. It was bound with five hoops of thick, hammered brass that had resisted the damp of the surrounding marsh. The flat top of each firkin was filled to the brim with a solid, four-inch cake of dark red beeswax, stamped three times with the official regimental seal: a royal eagle holding a land-mapper’s compass in its talons.
Across the wax of the center barrel, scratched with the point of a dagger while the wax was still warm, was a single, readable stone carving: TO THE Town Judge OF HIGH-FEN · OPEN IN COURT.
Tomas knelt in the dust, setting his emerald moss jar beside the firkins. Sile and Nessa joined him, kneeling in silent respect on the cold stone.
“The captain knew they were dying,” Tomas said. He ran his fingers across the wax stone carving. “He gathered the records, put them into dry oak tubs, and sealed them with church tapers before the last lamp went out.”
“Do we open them here?” Nessa asked softly.
“Under Section Twenty of the Military Inquest Code,” Tomas answered, “an approved Master Tax clerk is empowered to break regimental seals in situ if preservation of life, lineage, or sovereign debt is at stake. We must verify the contents before the Grand Guild learns this door is breached.”
