Night fell over the lower terraces with the swift, sudden chill of late autumn. The wind shifted to the north, blowing down from the cold limestone crags, carrying the scent of frost and wet fallen leaves.
Two leagues past the vineyard. There, the road entered an ancient belt of scrub oak and flint quarries, Tomas and Nessa found shelter in the ruins of an abandoned lime kiln. The kiln was a massive circular structure of unmortared stone built into the hillside, its firing chamber fifty feet deep, vaulted with a corbelled dome that had withstood sixty years of winter gales. The inside was dry, sheltered from the biting north wind, its floor covered with a thick bed of clean, dry oak leaves that smelled of tannin and dried earth.
Tomas set down his ash pack-frame in the center of the chamber, leaning it carefully against a dry limestone ledge. He unlashed the oiled tarpaulin, took out his four Master Audit volumes. Then he stacked them neatly upon a flat stone slab out of reach of any possible moisture.
Nessa gathered dry oak twigs and fallen branches from the edge of the quarry. She didn’t build a large, roaring fire that would throw sparks into the roof or blind their night vision. She built a small, tight hunter’s fire between three limestone hearth-stones, feeding it with dry sticks until a steady bed of red, smokeless coals glowed in the darkness.
