Extracting nine hundred pounds of soft naval lead from an overhead ceiling without bending the metal needed the patient rigging skills of an old shipwright. Rolled lead was malleable as cold cheese. If a plate bent by six inches, the soft metal would buckle along the arrow grooves, distorting the lettering and ruining its legal standing in court.
Nessa Vale directed the rigging from the floor of the cellar. She had Sile Rook and four veteran wagon drivers erect two stout heart-oak raking shores beneath the center of the first plate, supporting the metal with wide ash-wood planks padded with horsehair blankets.
Tomas stood upon the pine bench with a heavy iron claw-bar and an eight-pound copper mallet. His left forearm was wrapped in fresh vinegar linen, the scarred tendon pulling tight whenever he swung the mallet. But his right arm struck the iron ship’s spikes with unhesitating accuracy.
Clang! Clang! Creak.
The square-headed naval spikes, driven into green oak eighteen years ago, groaned in their sockets. One by one, Tomas backed the rusted through iron pins out of the roof floor beams. It caught each four-inch spike in a wooden bowl so it could be entered into the evidence register.
