Before they could defend the four-hundred-foot gallery, Tomas needed physical proof of the internal mortar’s failure.
A court could argue over fine-scale transit counts, claiming sight aberration or land-mapper bias. But no judge on the King’s Bench could deny a solid metal tube of crushed stone and crumbled lime pulled out from the load-bearing heart of the wall.
Tomas stood on the western narrow high walkway at four hundred and fifty feet, suspended in his oak harness four feet above the belfry roof. In his hands, he held a heavy diamond-pointed core drill—a three-foot hollow steel barrel, two inches in width, tipped with heavy-duty bort diamond chips brazed into the cutting crown, operated by a two-man ratchet wrench with a four-foot ash crossbar.
“Set the water feed, Sile,” Tomas directed, positioning the diamond crown against a bed joint four inches above the belfry doorstep.
Sile Rook held a high-pressure copper hand-pump, directing a fine jet of river water through a brass nozzle directly onto the rotating cutting face to wash away the stone cuttings and prevent the diamond teeth from overheating and stripping their solder.
“Brace your boots, Tomas,” Sile warned, his knuckles white around the pump handle. “When the diamond hits granite, it bites hard. Don’t let the crossbar whip your wrist.”
