The restoration box was an awkward, box-shaped chest of zinc-plated copper, two feet wide and four feet long, that Tomas had hauled on his pack-frame from Master Kael’s print shop in the bookbinders’ lane. It smelled of boiled rainwater, stale vinegar, and the sharp, metal tang of soldered tin seams. Inside the lower pool, two inches of purified rainwater simmered over a small spirit fire bowl. It sent a fine, warm mist through a punched holes in copper baffle into the upper chamber where the ancient thick parchment scroll was suspended on linen tapes.
Hester Quill knelt beside the rig. She held a brass-cased heat gauge that she had dipped into the steam vent. Her hair had pulled loose from its tortoiseshell combs, hanging in gray wisps around her flushed, sweating face. She held her breath as the liquid silver thread crept upward. She tapped the glass casing with a fingernail to prevent the bead from sticking.
“One hundred and eight degrees,” Hester announced, her voice tight with tension. “Not a degree higher, Tomas! If the heat inside that chamber touches one hundred and twenty, the natural connective tissue in the sheepskin will begin to cook. It won’t soften. It will turn into sticky brown glue. The King’s promise will dissolve into a pot of mutton soup.”
