The Four-Hundred-Foot Gallery was a narrow stone narrow high walkway, scarcely three feet wide, that encircled the base of the Spire’s eight-sided belfry.
There was no protective low roof wall here. Only a low, eight-inch curb of weathered granite that separated the narrow high walkway from the dizzying, four-hundred-foot upright drop to the cobblestones of Weaver’s Row. The wind screamed through the open belfry arches with the force of an ungreased sawmill, whipping sheets of freezing drizzle across the flat stone slabs and coating the iron bell-gudgeons in pale, slippery rime ice.
Tomas Reed knelt on the western narrow high walkway. His back was pressed hard against the solid stone pier of the belfry, his safety harness snapped into two heavy forged-iron anchor eyebolts set into the doorway arch.
Beside him sat the cedar chest.
Nessa Vale knelt on the opposite side of the chest, her fingers numb inside her split-leather gloves, carefully unfastening the heavy brass catches. When she lifted the lid, the sweet, heavy scent of sheep fat and neat’s-foot oil rose into the freezing air, escaping from the thick fleece bed that cradled the master plummet.
Tomas reached down with both hands, his scarred left forearm bracing. His fingers closed around the turned gunmetal handles of the plummet.
