The black pitch sealing the lead document metal tube was as hard as cold flint, stone-hard by sixty winters of stale cellar air and bitter-salt limestone water drops. Scribe Olla knelt on her folded square of oiled canvas. He held a small tin spirit-lamp with steady fingers. Meanwhile, she brought the tip of a heated copper spatula to within a quarter-inch of the dark resin. The flame cast a narrow, flickering amber cone across the damp flat stone slabs of Tier Three, Bay Fourteen, releasing a sharp, pungent odor of boiled pine tar, beeswax, and rancid animal fat into the dead chill of the catacombs.
Tomas Reed stood at the stone base, his dark-lantern resting upon two dry chestnut thin wedges he had leveled with his folding pocket rule. He reached down to adjust his left wrist brace. He drew the three-inch iron buckle one notch tighter against the stiff, oiled calfskin. The river damp sought the deep muscle-sheath scar across his left forearm, an old blade cut that left him with sixty-five percent grip. He raised his left hand, flexing each finger against his thumb—index, middle, ring, little finger—holding each stretch until blood returned.
“Ease the spatula along the solder line,” Tomas directed in a low, level voice. “The lead beneath the pitch is scarcely an eighth of an inch thick. If you overheat the metal, the soldered rim will run into the silk sleeve inside and scorch the thick parchment.”
