The first flight of stairs was carved from single blocks of dark gray granite, ten feet wide, their central hollows worn down half an inch by two hundred years of soft leather slippers and shuffling clerk boots.
The air here on Tier One was cold and dry. He smelled of cedarwood, bitter sulfur fumigant. The sweet, waxy aroma of refined spermaceti oil burning in bronze hanging cressets. The ceiling was a barrel vault of clean cut stone stonework, ribbed with limestone arches that met the floor in squared pilasters. Every twenty paces, a bronze grille set into the stone floor allowed a faint, warm draft from the lower heating chimney pipes to rise. That kept the moisture in the air at an exact, measured thirty-five percent—the optimum dryness for preserving calfskin thick parchment.
Senior Archivist Kren walked three paces ahead of them. His black velvet robe swept the flat stone slabs with a heavy, rustling whisper. The nine bronze keys around his neck clinked together like muted sheep bells at every step. He carried a long brass rod tipped with a horn candle-snuffer. He pointed it grandly toward the cedar pigeonholes that lined the walls in twelve-foot banks.
“Tier One,” Kren rumbled, his voice echoing off the stone vaulting with dramatic pride. “The Sovereign Archive of the First Rank. Here lie the hereditary patents of the Great Peerage, the tax immunities of the Bishoprics. The private marriage settlements of the Blood Royal since the Coronation of King Alden I. Look…
