Tomas Reed tied a three-quarter-inch hemp safety line around his chest harness, tested the forged iron ring at his chest bone with a sharp tug. Then he handed the bitter end to Sile Rook. Behind them in the vaulted brick gloom of the ancient undercroft, the yellow flame of a Davy safety lamp flickered through fine copper wire gauze. It cast long, barred shadows across the wet stonework. The air carried the ancient, tomb-cold chill of underground Crown-Reach. A heavy moisture laden with the scent of damp lime mortar, rotting river reeds, and the pungent sulfur tang of four hundred years of unrecorded town slow leak.
“Keep a taut snub on the timber baulk, Sile,” Tomas said, checking the buckle of his calfskin brace. “The current through that breach has the weight of an unlatched water gate. If my footing gives, take two turns around the oak support post and hold.”
“The support post is wedged with heart-oak wedges, Tomas,” Sile replied. He wrapped the rough hemp twice around his calloused fists. “It won’t budge for three tons of pull. Just mind the sewer gas down there. If the lamp flame stretches tall and blue, haul on the line twice and climb.”
