The taproom of the Cross-Keys Inn was built of heavy limestone rubble, with low ceiling beams of blackened ship-timber that bowed under the weight of the grain loft above. In the center of the eastern wall, a vast inglenook fireplace of rough-hewn stone held a bed of red, glowing peat bricks three feet wide, throwing off an intense, aromatic heat that smelled of dried moss, bog iron, and woodsmoke.
Tomas and Nessa pushed open the heavy oak door. Then, the warm, peat-scented air hit them like a dry woolen blanket.
The room was crowded with thirty people. Wagon drivers in wet oilskins, peat-cutters with black mud dried onto their trousers, spinners from the village cottage-looms, and several small farmers who had been caught on the road by the afternoon storm. Six pairs of heavy work boots were already drying on the hearth-curb, their leather steaming in the intense heat, while four wet sheepdogs slept peacefully under the long frame stand tables.
Tomas unbuckled his pack-frame in the entry passage. He lifted the sixty-eight-pound hamper with his good right arm and set it carefully on a dry oak bench behind the door. He unlashed the outer tarpaulin: the linen beneath was dry and cool to the touch.
