In the morning Pip was missing, and a flour sack was clicking.
Ysabet stood in the laundry shelter with a dish of soaked grain. The sack lay on its side beside the crate. It had been washed until the old miller’s stamp was scarcely legible, but a pale residue remained in its seams. From the open end protruded three narrow feet.
Another click came from inside.
She set the grain beside the mouse’s box.
The mouse had climbed over the edge of its shallow basket lid twice yesterday. The box had once held boot nails; Ysabet had scrubbed it, covered half the top with a piece of board, and transferred the lining from the basket before adding loose dry grass in one corner. It stood in a sheltered part of the enclosure with a shallow strip of wood leading to its rim. The mouse could get in using its front feet. Getting out was easier, though it tended to arrive nose first.
Now it sat beneath the cover, washing its face. The wound on its flank had dried to a narrow scab. Its injured hind foot touched the ground occasionally when it turned, but it still dragged the leg for several steps before gathering it close.
Ysabet placed two grains within reach.
The mouse stopped washing and seized the nearer one.
Three feet disappeared into the sack.
“That’s not your breakfast,” Ysabet said.
Pip did not reappear.
It had eaten a respectable portion of broken tile before dawn, when she had risen to settle Tallow after a cart rattled past. Apparently the next part of its morning required privacy and an old flour sack. She left it there and went to make her own breakfast.
Chaska arrived before the porridge had thickened.
She had Lilt’s harness over her shoulder, a thin sealed parcel in her hand, and an expression which made Ysabet move the clean cup away from the table edge.
“Have you got a quarter of an hour?”
“Eventually.”
“Before the north post bell.”
“No.”
Chaska’s mouth tightened. She spread a folded sheet beside the stove. It showed the road above Bent Reed, the ferry cut, and a series of short marks through the marsh grass.
“I need someone to confirm where this leaves the public road. The salt store is paying me to carry their corrected boundary drawing to the weigh house. If I add the cart track, I have to say who showed it to me.”
“I can tell you which gate I use.”
“I need to see it from the track. Their last drawing put a storehouse in the water.”
Ysabet glanced toward the yard. Tallow had to be fed, Sedge’s sleeping place moved, and a groom was bringing a pack beast after the bell. Leaving now would mean trusting the groom to wait. The last time he had waited, he had done so for approximately one breath before taking his employer’s money elsewhere.
“I can’t this morning.”
“You said you’d show me the marsh paths.”
“I did. I should have given you a day.”
Chaska folded one corner of the paper back on itself, making a new crease over the ferry.
“I could go alone.”
“You could. The track splits behind the salt fence. One branch ends at a drainage cut.”
“I know what water looks like.”
Ysabet stirred the porridge too hard. A lump broke against the spoon.
Outside, Lilt scraped gently along the paving. Chaska looked toward her, then took a breath.
“The smith’s niece delivers charcoal there. I’ll ask her. If she can come, I’ll pay her out of the route fee.”
Ysabet wanted to offer the following morning. The parcel was in Chaska’s hand now; the post bell was today.
“Her name’s Rella,” she said. “She uses the east gate.”
“I know her name.”
“Yes. Of course.”
Chaska tucked the drawing away. She accepted a piece of yesterday’s bread, standing up to eat it, and declined porridge. Ysabet went out with her to look at Lilt’s rub.
The skin beneath the left harness edge was dry and smooth. A pink patch remained, tender when the strap shifted across it. Chaska had adjusted the padding so its seam sat farther forward. Ysabet checked that it did not bunch against the sandray’s leading fin, then let it settle.
“Short stage to the weigh house?”
“Then back on foot if she wants. I’ve allowed for it.”
Lilt raised her head at Chaska’s hand. The courier scratched the ridged skin behind her jaw, balancing her parcel beneath her elbow.
A flutter came from the far end of the yard.
They both looked.
A small brown bird dropped beside the nettles growing along the disused bath drain. It flapped, rose a finger’s breadth, and fell into the same place.
Chaska started toward it.
“The bell,” Ysabet said.
“I have a moment.”
Another wingbeat struck the weeds. Pip emerged from the shelter with the flour sack trailing over its rear half. It took two steps, halted, and pulled its smallest legs free. The sack remained behind like a discarded coat.
The bird fluttered again.
Pip went toward it through the enclosure gate, still open from the interrupted bedding change.
“Go,” Ysabet said. “I’ll deal with this.”
Chaska hesitated, then gathered the harness in both hands and settled it over Lilt. She checked the left edge herself. A moment later they were moving toward the gate, Lilt following with a low ripple of her fins.
“Don’t wait for me at midday,” Chaska called. “If Rella comes, we’re taking the upper track too.”
Ysabet lifted a hand.
Pip had stopped just beyond reach of the bird’s wing.
A length of old twine ran from a dead nettle stem to the bird’s foot. Ysabet recognized the grey knots before she understood the rest. The twine had once tied a scrap of wind cloth to the bath fence. Someone had cut it loose and dropped the waste beneath the weeds. The bird had caught a loop, then wound it tighter by trying to escape.
Its wing looked whole. Each time it struggled, a nettle bent and pulled its leg back.
“Hold on.”
The bird did not.
Ysabet fetched her thick glove and the little scissors from her room. When she returned, Pip was standing closer. Its broad middle feet were planted on the earth. A narrow outer foot touched the twine.
The bird lunged away. Pip withdrew.
Ysabet knelt on the paving and put the glove on her left hand. She used it to gather the nettle stems below their leaves and hold them still. Her right could brace the scissors against her knee later, but for the moment she needed to see what was caught.
Pip stepped around her glove.
Its eye followed the twine to the bird. Two small toes caught the slack between stems. The foot lifted, and a loop slid up a green stalk.
Ysabet leaned nearer.
“Careful.”
Pip clicked once. Whether at her voice or the bird’s movement, she could not tell.
The lifted loop caught on a leaf. Another foot pressed the leaf down. The loop slipped free.
The bird stood still for a moment, its beak open.
Ysabet had watched those feet fit broken pottery together. Here the same small joints moved one strand across another with an exactness her good hand could not manage while wearing a glove. Pip did not always choose the right strand. Once it pulled the wrong end and tightened the line. The bird jerked; Ysabet held the stem steady until the tension eased.
A little foot released the cord.
She could see the trapped leg now. A single twist remained above the toes.
“That’s enough. I can get there.”
She laid the nettle stems flat beneath her boot. Then she removed the glove, worked the scissors into her left hand, and brought the closed tips under the slack twine a little way from the bird’s foot. Pip’s feet moved after the metal.
Ysabet paused until they had withdrawn.
One cut parted the long strand.
The bird hopped, checked by the loop still on its leg. She laid a corner of her apron over its wings and held it against the earth with her right palm, using her forearm to keep the pressure gentle and steady. It hammered against the cloth.
With her left she unwound the short cut strand. There was a red groove above the toes, but no broken skin she could see.
Pip pushed its jaw beneath the apron edge.
“Out.”
She moved her elbow between them. Pip backed away, then approached from the other side.
Ysabet lifted the apron.
The bird flew directly into her face.
She shut her eyes. A claw caught her hair, let go, and the bird reached the bathhouse wall. It clung to a mortar gap, breathing hard. Then it flew to the top of the gate and vanished into the street.
Pip remained beneath the lifted apron.
Ysabet put it down.
A few nettle stings burned above her glove line. Her hair hung over one eye. The scissors had landed in the dirt.
“Well,” she said.
Pip examined the cut twine. She gathered it before it could put the knot in its mouth.
The rest of the dead cord took longer to clear than freeing the bird had. She filled half a bucket with scraps, found two old wire hooks beneath the weeds, and moved a broken brick which had been blocking the drain. The waiting porridge set into a single solid piece.
By the time the groom arrived, the yard smelled of crushed nettles. Pip had returned to the enclosure and was nosing beside the mouse’s box. The mouse emerged down its wooden strip, dragging its bad leg, and climbed into the open pouch. Pip settled into the flour sack with the entrance facing the yard.
Ysabet was still cutting the groom’s frayed harness binding when the wind changed.
The smell came faintly over the wall: dry grass and smoke.
“Marsh burners,” the groom said. “They’ll want the channels clear before the rain.”
She glanced up. Above the bathhouse roof, the sky remained a flat, pale blue.
“Early for it.”
“Ground’s dry.”
Ysabet drew the new binding tight. Beyond the gate someone called the price of onions, and a cart wheel rattled over the stones. She could no longer smell the nettles.